Holy Imagination & Wonder

In just a little while I will be boarding an airplane that will take me on a six hour flight from Orlando to Portland, Oregon--from the east coast to the west coast of these United States in just a matter of hours.  

It's amazing when you think about it.  I'll get inside what is essentially a long metal tube with wings and fly across the country, just like hundreds of thousands, if not millions of other people today.  

Just a little over one hundred years ago, when the Wright Brothers made that first flight at Kitty Hawk, NC, no one could have fully imagined what we are able to do today.  

But here's the interesting bit... they did imagine something like it.  It would take great imagination, grit and determination to make that first flight happen.  But after that first flight--that's where the real creativity, the otherworldly kinds of dreams and visions were born.  When people began asking... What if? 

I think far too many of us Christians have lost their sense of wonder when it comes to their faith.  They assume that everything that needs to be said about the Bible, their faith, God, Jesus, Christianity, the Church... everything that needs to be said has already been said.   

We start thinking that we have defined everything we could define when it comes to our theology.  We start believing that we have the answers at last.  We fall back on our certainty with a sense of pride, perhaps.  

Jesus said something very interesting to his disciples once:  

Very truly I tell you, whoever believes in me will do the works I have been doing, and they will do even greater things than these, because I am going to the Father. (John 14:12)

Wait a moment.  Jesus said that his followers would do "even greater things" than he was able to do?  Jesus healed people.  He raised someone from the dead.  He calmed the wind and the waves.  Was he really serious about what he was saying?  You bet.  

Jesus gave something to his disciples that was truly amazing.  He gave them potential--potential through the power of the Holy Spirit of God.  He wanted them to dream, to imagine, to act with boldness, to heal, practice resurrection and spread the Gospel to the whole world.  

Jesus showed them what it looked like when the chains of certainty, pride, religiosity and tradition were loosed from our souls.  

He taught us that God is still speaking.  That Creation is still in progress.  That Resurrection is springing up all around us.  And that we can be a part of sharing this glorious news with anyone who will listen.  

May you be filled with wonder and holy imagination today and every day.  May you dare to dream of a world made right, of lives restored, of brokenness mended.  May you share the Good News of resurrection life every moment, every day, all of the time.  

And may the grace and peace of our Lord Jesus Christ be with you now and always. Amen.