Invited in for Intimacy and Intercession
Josh Lyman is Deputy Chief of Staff on the White House drama The West Wing. He is in charge of the president's politics, and in the course of the show a newspaper profile will he quit his power as an unelected staffer with that of a sitting United States senator. However, his swagger can tend to overstep. This time it was funny, and probably played even by him for comic effect. He said in the fictional timeframe of the show that Mexico's economy was collapsing because the country didn't do what he told them to do by devaluing the peso. He then backpedaled under skeptical questioning from his assistant to admit that the warning actually came from the Secretary of the Treasury with actual authority on the issue. Josh admits as sheepishly as Josh can that he was merely in the room.
As the Bible and The West Wing occupy immense portions of my operational mental reserves, it will surprise no one that content intermingles. We as Christians can swell our sense of importance and the impressiveness of our speech from the fact that we are "in the room" where the most important decisions are made, with none of Josh's sense of irony. Like our forefather in the faith of Abraham, we have been invited into His counsel, amazingly exalted as His friend (Genesis 18:17-19 and James 2:23). We know His Word which He raises in importance above His Name (Psalm 138:2).
Well-worn is the slide from insider to excluder. Even John, the apostle whom Jesus loved and who dined most intimately with Him at the Last Supper would lose his footing on this treacherous ground before us and cast himself as Enforcer. John even chirps about it to Jesus in Luke 9:49, expecting commendation for using the authority of access to stop someone else from working in Jesus' Name. The rebuke John received instead is a reminder that being close to Jesus, even beloved of Jesus is not the same thing as being Him and co-opting His prerogatives. With the veteran priest in the movie Rudy, we are sure of two Truths we must keep yoked together. (1) There is a God. (2) We are not Him.
As heady as we can get with the hubris of being "in the room" and as much as this can distort our perspective, we would be equally wrong not to celebrate the ongoing invitation to intimate fellowship with the King of Kings. The certain invitation to dine with Him one day at the wedding supper of the Lamb in Revelation 19 is enough to gladden our speech and make hearty our hearts in the here and now. Even better, the transformation of identity the Bible renders in believers is done in two dimensions. Yes, "in the room" is a destination, and we look forward to that. "In the room," is also a present reality according to Ephesians 2:6, which says that we are raised up together and made to sit, with the past tense of an accomplishment, together in heavenly places with Christ Jesus.
To what purpose is our position? Are we thus invited so that we can drop the Name to our benefit and intimidating effect? Or, are we so positioned as a present reality of which we become increasingly aware so that we can enjoy a fellowship with Father, Son, and Holy Spirit that often turns to interceding, lobbying, advocating for others more defined by a sense of estrangement? If Josh finds quick continuity between being in the room where a better way to avoid a problem in the first place was offered and compassionately pushing for relief because it is possible to offer it, perhaps our thoughts, Christians, toward distracted and suffering outsiders will change.
As the Bible and The West Wing occupy immense portions of my operational mental reserves, it will surprise no one that content intermingles. We as Christians can swell our sense of importance and the impressiveness of our speech from the fact that we are "in the room" where the most important decisions are made, with none of Josh's sense of irony. Like our forefather in the faith of Abraham, we have been invited into His counsel, amazingly exalted as His friend (Genesis 18:17-19 and James 2:23). We know His Word which He raises in importance above His Name (Psalm 138:2).
Well-worn is the slide from insider to excluder. Even John, the apostle whom Jesus loved and who dined most intimately with Him at the Last Supper would lose his footing on this treacherous ground before us and cast himself as Enforcer. John even chirps about it to Jesus in Luke 9:49, expecting commendation for using the authority of access to stop someone else from working in Jesus' Name. The rebuke John received instead is a reminder that being close to Jesus, even beloved of Jesus is not the same thing as being Him and co-opting His prerogatives. With the veteran priest in the movie Rudy, we are sure of two Truths we must keep yoked together. (1) There is a God. (2) We are not Him.
As heady as we can get with the hubris of being "in the room" and as much as this can distort our perspective, we would be equally wrong not to celebrate the ongoing invitation to intimate fellowship with the King of Kings. The certain invitation to dine with Him one day at the wedding supper of the Lamb in Revelation 19 is enough to gladden our speech and make hearty our hearts in the here and now. Even better, the transformation of identity the Bible renders in believers is done in two dimensions. Yes, "in the room" is a destination, and we look forward to that. "In the room," is also a present reality according to Ephesians 2:6, which says that we are raised up together and made to sit, with the past tense of an accomplishment, together in heavenly places with Christ Jesus.
To what purpose is our position? Are we thus invited so that we can drop the Name to our benefit and intimidating effect? Or, are we so positioned as a present reality of which we become increasingly aware so that we can enjoy a fellowship with Father, Son, and Holy Spirit that often turns to interceding, lobbying, advocating for others more defined by a sense of estrangement? If Josh finds quick continuity between being in the room where a better way to avoid a problem in the first place was offered and compassionately pushing for relief because it is possible to offer it, perhaps our thoughts, Christians, toward distracted and suffering outsiders will change.
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