Relish is Good All Over!

“How can he say that every week, Pastor,” asked a very young woman. She says that each Sunday, after he returns home from church, her boy friend phones. Time after time his elated greeting is, “Theresa, I’m a changed man!”

I resisted the urge to point out that, at their ages, neither she nor he has reached full womanhood, or manhood. That wasn’t a hard task since my sons still ask me what I want to be when I grow up.

“What does he mean going to church makes him a changed man,” she pressed, delight and enchantment radiating from her face. “What do you think he means,” I asked. “Something about hearing God makes him feel good all over.” “Yes,” I said, “All over, and all over again.” The teachable moment evaporated as quickly and unexpectedly as it had arrived. “He’s got a new cell phone too and …”

Both youthful inexperience and over familiarity can do that; lead us to deprive a moment of its rich, hidden, mysterious bounty. Listen to those words: rich; hidden; mysterious; and, bountiful. Those are apt words to describe hearts leaning toward love.

Good words, too, to express hearts drawn on Maundy Thursday and Good Friday to lean toward an Easter Christ – rich, hidden, mysterious, bountiful. Especially apt words for hearts made ready by souls who have observed Lent; eagerly longing become a changed person.

It may have happened. We might even discover that it has happened – if we don’t advance beyond the teachable moment too quickly.

Even if our Lenten “sacrifice” was small: giving up chocolate; withdrawing from caffeine; abandoning alcohol; foregoing snack foods; small can be lovely. Lovely, not merely decorative but lovely, as in enticing, exquisite, indescribably new!

Before we advance through Easter, making that day a mere dietary liberation, spend time relishing in the new person God longs to lead you to become.

What is it about hearing, all over again, God’s moving Jesus from that tomb into our beating heart’s room, that makes you, us, feel good all over, all over again, in ways no dietary reprieve can match?