But You.

Our Beloved God,
We come in response to You this morning. No, between You and us, we acknowledge we are the not the initiators. You have always preceded, You have always gone before. You are the One who beckons us into union, who calls to us in the startling silence of our sin; the One giving name to the beginning, making things new, inviting, commencing, opening, initiating. Once again we find it is You. And then us. Just as it has always been.

We would flatter ourselves to say we were once in need of help or assistance or aid. But Your Word testifies against us, and insists we needed salvation. We were not struggling, in distress or just getting by, as we have often easily thought. We were dead. Dead. Not dying, not fading, not waning. Dead.

You Word says we were dead in the trespasses and sins in which we once walked; yes, this deadness was our proper living space, if the word living could even be appropriated. We followed the course of this world. We followed the prince of the power of the air. We followed the spirit that is now at work in the sons of disobedience. Formed in the womb of wrath, we were of the people of a dead land, and condemnation was our rightful inheritance. In our hearts we would like to think this was never properly said of beings such as us – us with our painted nails and faces, with our church attire on and every hair in place. Us with our impressive lives press through tight lips. Us, telling life the way we want it to be, sharing enough to impress but not nearly enough to be known. Us with our dutiful way of worship and cloying need to sentimentalize it. Us, Lord? Yes, us. And in the stillness of silence, we stammer upon the startling reality that for this, too, we need saving.
But You.
But YOU.
You, the Eternal Life from the Father, manifested to us in our form and figure. You, the Word of God spoken into our vernacular and articulation. You, our Incarnated God, are the One who became flesh of our very flesh and bone of our very bones. You betrothed us to Yourself while we were still children of wrath, when our origin was still of despair. While we still resided in the land of darkness and belonged to the people of the dead, You came to us and insisted the liturgy of our lineage stop. You halted the list of accusations rightfully positioned against us, with “but God”. And with those two words You changed everything.

We were at that time separate from Christ, But You, have brought us near by Your blood. We were excluded from the commonwealth of Your people, But You Yourself are our peace. We were strangers to the covenants of promise, But You broke down the barrier of the dividing wall between us-and-them and included us both into Your flesh. We had no hope, but You granted us access in one spirit to the Father. We were without God in the world, but You gave us Yourself.

But You. Yes, this Word from God radically changes everything. And while the sound of their articulation still rings in our ears we notice we are often not so radically different. Even while we thank You for Your holy interference, we find we have crept back into our old skin. Crawling back into the corpse of dead, putrid flesh You gave Your flesh to free us from. We have chosen, once again, to live into our old selves, to follow the prince of the air rather than You, our Prince of Peace. We have sought out other lovers, other names, other lands of belonging because we did not believe Yours was true enough for us. We have rejected You again, crucified King. We insist on bitterness towards our bothers, we hold our idols close to our chests, we convince ourselves of our own falsehoods, we do not care for Your conviction, we refuse to pardon and we notice not the ironic way we ask You for it. And for these, too, we need Your forgiveness.

And so we, the chiefest of sinners, wearied with the burden of our sins, and seeking rest – we who know what it is to have tears, and anxieties, and perplexities, and suspicions of self – we who are anxious to be rid of all this, and to have perfect peace and perfect joy, are reminded that we invited to come. We hear “But God” resound again in this supper of mercy afforded to us today. We see You have initiated again, dear Lord, in this broken bread and poured out wine. And we come to this spread table, bringing not our virtues to glory in them, nor our sins to get sanction for them. No, we bring our scraps of goodness and cast them at Your feet desiring be included in Your flesh. We bring our sins, hating them, and request to wash them away in the Savior’s blood. We are imperfect sinners seeking Your perfection. We have weak faith seeking Your strength. We possess cold love seeking Your warmth. We bear hearts where desire and desperation mingle aching to hear “But God” resound again in Your flesh and blood that we may partake of You.

We hear You, ever -insisting “but God” is our reality again today. And we will respond in gratitude and glad obedience.
We pray all this in the name of the one who enfleshed “but God”, even Jesus. Amen.