Beloveds, How Are You Doing?​​​​​​​​

​How is it with your soul today?

I know this is the printed page and not an in-person conversation, but can we take a moment to just breathe? In through the nose for a count of 4, filling up the lungs and chest, dropping the diaphragm to make space… then hold for a count of 4, just letting the breath rest there, just in front of your heart in those oh-so-precious lungs… then slowly out through the mouth for a count of 8, taking twice as long to exhale as to inhale……

When we are stressed, panicked, overwhelmed, anxious, we tend to breathe more shallowly, in our shoulders, triggering the body’s alerts to danger, and while this was useful when living as hunter-gatherers way way back in the day, it isn’t sustainable or healthy to remain in that state of stress as constantly as so many of us are. Afraid of losing work, afraid of losing friends, afraid of sickness, afraid of conflict, afraid, afraid, afraid, only spirals into panic and narrowing vision.

When Jesus was crucified by the state, as so many challengers to the powers of the day were, the impact of that on his body was to effectively cut off his air as his lungs filled with fluid and he drowned. He knows well what our anxiety, panic attacks, stress, and fear feels like

-- it may have been one of the last things he felt before he breathed his last. 

I don’t say that to make you feel badly about his dying for us. Truly. The last thing we need is additional guilt and anxiety for the state of the world. He knows that. He preached good news to the poor, who were often cast aside and told they deserved their lot in life. He brought sight to the blind, who were often cast aside and blamed for their blindness. He fed the hungry, who were often hungry because the food they worked to earn was taken by and for the Roman troops (feel free to read up on the Irish potato ‘famine’ -- that was a policy choice -- for a contemporary parallel). He died as one of us, as one of the outcast and blamed, as one who became inconvenient to the powers that be.

Rome did this to break his followers, to scatter them with fear, to instill suspicion among those who might otherwise rise up and build something better, if only they knew

who to trust.

Rome could not imagine how far the Jesus movement would go, or how long it would last, the body of Christ alive on this earth, still welcoming, restoring, feeding, dying and rising, against all odds.

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Rome did not anticipate Easter!

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​​​​​Grace and Peace,

Pastor Andrew Tobias Nelson