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TableTalk is a growing archive of snippets and stories from the heart of our fellowship. “When I am lifted up…” March 1, 2004
Posted by Lindquist in : Editorial , add a comment“And I, when I am lifted up from the earth, will draw all people to myself” (John 12:32).
A few days ago I saw our fellowship at work. On February 16 and 17, our Home Council gathered in Minneapolis, in leadership of our life together. They are young and old, men and women, lay people and ordained. They represent ELCA, LCMS, AFLC, AALC, ARC, and LB Lutherans - an entire alphabetical menagerie. They reflect European, Asian and Latin American ancestries, and a range of professional skills from automobile mechanics to gynecology. In one sense, they have rather little in common. Yet they come together around the mission of Jesus.
On the evening of February 17, I saw it again. Hundreds of our praying members gathered for our “Annual Meeting” - an evening of baked pork chops, praises, and prayer. They are young and old, men and women, students and retirees - and again from a menagerie of cultures, congregations and college campuses in the Twin Cities area. I wonder, frankly, if another organization in America brings together as many varieties of Lutherans as we find in our little fellowship. What brings them together is the mission of Jesus.
Our fellowship works around the mission of Jesus - and because of it. The mission of Jesus makes us Christians in the first place. And then it graces and equips us as disciple-makers. The mission of Christ gathers us together, and Christ’s mission sends us out again.
The experience reminds me of a verse from the middle of John. When Jesus was lifted up, we are told, he drew “all people” to himself. Other ancient translations are even more expansive: “all things” are drawn to the Savior because of his work at Calvary. The cross and the empty tomb that followed are events of such utter enormity that everyone and everything are drawn into orbit around them. They have become the center of the landscape. And if we understand what happened there - if only a little - they must become the center of our lives.
God died at Calvary. God took upon himself our sin and our death - everything that was wrong about us - and finished it. And he gave us in simple, blessed exchange his life forever. Asian or African, LCMS or AALC, auto mechanic or physician, etc. - the distinctions pale when compared for a moment with this flaming center. There is something bigger at work here. From time to time, it is good to remember it.
Verses like these - and, in a much smaller way, experiences like gathering with our Home Council and Annual Meeting - remind me of the radical egalitarianism of Calvary. Here the vilest of our species is made whole. Here the best and the brightest are shown wanting. We stand equally in need at Calvary - and equally forgiven.
It turns out that we are equally commissioned, too. Our Lord is drawing people everywhere to himself, as he promised. And he aims to draw them through you.