Good Morning!
Here are a few thoughts from my morning coffee time - from the stillness and quiet of my kitchen table. I hope it encourages you, and feel free to forward it to your friends and family.
Much love!
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Glenn || PATREON / BUY ME A COFFEE
In his book "Radical Transformation", Alexander John Shaia tells us that Matthew's Gospel was written to a group of early Jewish Christians who had lost everything that mattered to them. In 70AD Emperor Vespasian ordered the Temple to be destroyed and Jerusalem to be sacked so much so that ...
No brick was left standing.
It was completely annihilated.
All was lost.
The survivors made their way to a place called Antioch and one of the groups of survivors was called "the Messianic Jews" or "Jewish Christians" who had believed that Jesus was their Messiah ... and it was to them, in the wake of this horrendous event, that Matthew's Gospel was written.
The Gospel was not meant to be a historical play by play of the events of Jesus' life, but was a letter of sorts that was meant to ...
Encourage them in the midst of their loss.
Call them into a season of great change.
Remind them of Jesus' teachings.
Remind them that they were not alone.
In reflecting on the event Alexander John says that, "this loss threatened the foundations of Hebrew cosmology and wiped out almost every leader of the faith. Everything the Temple and its priests had represented in the hearts and spirit of its people had to somehow be rebuilt if the Jewish faith was to survive. In this time of great danger, rebirth was necessary."
We can all relate to loss, can't we?
In our modern world, many of us have never experienced the kind of loss experienced by these people (sadly, though, some have). But, even so, that doesn't diminish our own losses, right? It doesn't diminish the times that you and I have lost something precious that, then, prods us and calls us into a season of great change.
A medical diagnosis ushers in changes to your daily living.
The loss of a job ushers in changes to your finances.
The death of a loved one ushers in changes to your family.
The loss of beliefs ushers in changes to your circle of friends.
A divorce ushers in changes to ... everything.
Anyways, this morning I was reading the end of Matthew's Gospel where it says that when Jesus died an earthquake erupted that shook the world so hard that the curtain in the temple that closed off the Holy of Holies (the place where God lived) was torn right down the middle. The curtain tore, Alexander says, because it was no longer useful - the treasure that once lived behind the curtain now lived everywhere, and within us all.
The idea of the "earthquake" captured my attention this morning because those seasons of losses that I mentioned above ... they shake everything, don't they?
They disrupt.
They cause pain.
They cause anxiety.
They crack the very foundations of our lives.
They rob us of our comfort.
We can all relate to loss and we can, therefore, all relate to the earthquake of emotion that those losses trigger inside of us.
But the thing that grabbed my heart this morning is that even though the losses come and even though our worlds quake and even though our foundations crack ... it's in those times of loss and quakes and cracked foundations that the blinders very often come off, the curtains in our hearts and minds tear, the fog lifts, and we're able to see the Divine more clearly than we ever could before.
This is my prayer for you, and for me today.
May we know today and always that whatever Temples are crumbling around us and whatever foundations in our lives have cracked - our health, the loss of a friend or loved one, the deconstruction of our long-held beliefs and the consequent loss of friendships, family, etc ... we are not alone.
There is no curtain separating us and the Divine.
There is no wall.
There are no hoops for us to jump through.
We are loved just the way we are, and God says we are worthy of Spirit's presence just because I am me and you are you.
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#CoffeeThoughts