“I want to give you something”
Like many, our ACTS XXIX family is eagerly looking forward to Season 3 of The Chosen. I have personally found Jonathan Roumie’s portrayal of Jesus to be the best I have ever seen, and it has actually deeply informed the way I pray. I have always prayed, especially with Scripture, in a very visual manner, using my imagination to enter into whatever passage is before me. This past Sunday was a particularly graced experience of prayer for me.
As I began to pray, in my mind’s eye I saw a scene that will be familiar to those who have watched The Chosen. It was late at night, and seated around a fire was Jesus, alone, one hand resting on His knee and the other holding a stick, with which He was moving around the coals in the fire. In the scene I saw myself walking out of a tent, again, like the ones in The Chosen, and the Lord sees me. “Ah, John, you’re up,” He says to me. “Yes, Lord.” “What’s the matter?” He continues. “I can’t sleep,” I go on. “Come here and sit down.”
So, I sit down next to the Lord and He asks me what’s going on, with that gentle but strong voice. “I’m confused, Lord. I don’t get it. Everything looks like it’s going wrong. The wicked seem to prosper, those who curse You seem to thrive. Will it ever be well?”
“The Day really is coming, John, when a reckoning will happen, evil will be redressed and all things will be made new. Rest assured, My Father is faithful, and He will not be mocked.”
A sense of reassurance comes over me as I sit with the Lord around the fire, and then He continues. “But this is not the Kingdom, John; this is not heaven. Yes, I have abolished Death and defeated the power of Sin, and I have bound the strong man - and he knows it! But he still prowls like a roaring lion, and you’re living in an intermediate time between My victory and the final consummation of what I did on Calvary and My glorious resurrection. So stop expecting things to get easier. They will, in fact, get harder. It’s going to be rough. Because you belong to Me people are going to hate you, reject you, and curse you. They will say and do bad things to all of those who are My disciples. And yet,” Jesus continues, “you need to continue the mission I began on Easter, the re-creation of this world which My Father and I love! You must use the gifts I have entrusted to you to bring healing, reconciliation, and transformation to this world. All the while knowing that it will only fully be re-created on that real Day when I return.”
As the conversation continues, a great peace floods my mind. Jesus is with us! He is Lord! He is oh so near! There is no doubt in my mind about this, even as I know things will be hard and will probably get harder.
Just as I think He’s finished, the Lord – the stick still in His hands, tending the fire – turns to me and says, “But I need to tell you something, John. I want to give you something. You know, and I know, that when you think about My glorious return and evil being redressed and a reckoning, there are certain people you want to ‘get it,’ to pay.” And then He names them. He’s so right, of course! “You can’t want that. I don’t want that. My Father doesn’t want that. I died for the ungodly, and you were – and still can be – among the ungodly. I came so that all men and women could be rescued and gathered into My Father’s house. We do not delight in the death of the wicked. That means you can’t either, if you’re My disciple.”
“So,” He concludes this late night campfire conversation, “I want to give you My Heart. This is one of the reasons I established the Eucharist, so that I might be in you, so that your stony heart might become a heart of flesh. So that you might love as I love. So that you might desire what I desire. Drink deeply, then, of My Precious Blood; let it course through your veins, pushing out your often resentful and vengeful blood. Learn to pray to My Father constantly as I did from the cross, “Forgive them, for they do not know what they’re doing.”
And, with that, I return to my tent, grateful for God’s mercy and patience in my own life, confident that Jesus isn’t nervous or anxious right now, and profoundly aware that there is still so much work to do in my own life.