The Risen Christ Got There Ahead of Me
Eunice, my intern, and I started a "Missional Living" Sunday School class a while back at my former church in Monterey Park. I spoke from Scripture how God is a missionary God. Mission is part of his inherent nature in the Trinity, and one significant implication for us is to recognize that God is already up to something before we arrive to "do mission." I'm excited to see how the class can be a space to excite people's imaginations for the Kingdom. I'm excited to see how two pictures can make sense rather than seem like two unconnected worlds!
I also read another devotion from Eugene Peterson today (an excerpt from Under the Unpredictable Plant) that relates to this truth about mission flowing from the heart of God:
In every visit, every meeting I attend, every appointment I keep, I have been anticipated. The risen Christ got there ahead of me. The risen Christ is in that room already. What is he doing? What is he saying? What is going on?
In order to fix the implications of that text in my vocation, I have taken to quoting it before every visit or meeting: "He is risen...he is going before you to 1020 Emmorton Road; there you will see him, as he told you." Later in the day it will be, "He is risen...he is going before you to St. Joseph's Hospital; there you will see him, as he told you." When I arrive and enter the room I am not so much wondering what I am going to do or say that will be pastoral as I am alert and observant for what the risen Christ has been doing or saying that is making a gospel story out of this life. The theological category for this is prevenience, the priority of grace. We are always coming in on something that is already going on. Sometimes we clarify a word or feeling, sometimes we identify an overlooked relationship, sometimes we help recover an essential piece of memory--but always we are dealing with what the risen Christ has already set in motion, already brought into being.
If we are all ministers of Christ, we are "always coming in on something that is already going on." To me, it's a relief to know that it's not all up to me to make something happen; the risen Christ is already there! Can I get an AMEN?!?
Jesse Chang, Kingdom Causes Alhambra, Catalyst
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