Just this morning, while sipping my coffee — one kid clambering on my lap and another watching a cartoon — God spoke to me.
But this was not a Moses and the burning bush kind of encounter, nor that of the visions of Isaiah or John the Revelator. Nor (to be clear) was it a voice like that described by the medieval mystics or even more recent mystics like Dallas Willard or Richard Rohr. This was the voice of Master Wu, the second-born son of the first spinjitsu master in the LEGO Ninjago tv series my son was watching.
Master Wu was engaged in an epic battle with an ancient and powerful enemy, and things did not look good. The embodiment of evil fighting him openly mocked him and his frailty, offering his own version of the Borg’s famous line: “Resistance is futile.”
And it is here that Master Wu’s voice took on what those experienced forebears describe as a particular weight, tenor, and resonance — becoming something more than his own voice as he proclaimed: “Even if I thought I could not win, I would never stop fighting.”
It was a word from God — an encouragement I sorely needed after another brutal week in this nation. And it did not take long for the Spirit to connect Master Wu’s words to the prayer of Jesus in Gethsemane. Jesus saw what was coming. He saw the dead-end of his death fast approaching. “Is there another way?” he prays. Perhaps his humanity has never been so fully on display in the gospels until this moment. “Do I have to keep fighting this fight that can only lead to my death?” But then comes the pivot of faith: “Not my will, but God’s be done.” Even if I cannot win, I will never stop fighting for your justice and love and peace and hope and reconciliation to be fulfilled in creation.
If we would be followers of Jesus, this will be our path too: not my desires but God’s desires, not my priorities but God’s priorities, not my vision but God’s vision, not my ideas for success but God’s, not my machinations and manipulations but God’s open display of love and truth. Against the backdrop of those working to harm others for personal gain, we (like the apostle Paul) will “refuse to practice cunning or to falsify God’s word; but by the open statement of the truth we commend ourselves to the conscience of everyone in the sight of God” (2Corinthians 4:2b). By demonstrating we are disciples of Jesus by our love for others (John 13:35), we too may be “afflicted in every way, but not crushed; perplexed, but not driven to despair; persecuted, but not forsaken; struck down, but not destroyed; always carrying in the body the death of Jesus, so that the life of Jesus may also be made visible in our bodies… So we do not lose heart” (2Corinthians 4:8–10, 16a).
Remember, we’re all in this together.
Peace+
Pastor Michael