Willow Creek Association - ServiceBuilder May 2007

Wondering Where the Lions Are Repose. I love that word. Joyful stillness. Dignified calm. Deep-down serenity. It is not languor, repose, nor listlessness, nor sluggishness. There’s mettle here. Hard resolve and sturdy discipline. Repose is being awake, fully awake, and yet not moving a muscle. It is being aware, wholly aware, and yet not straining one thought.
	Repose is rest on purpose. Hyphenate the word – re-pose – and it means something else again: to pose once more, to take your position over. Most of us need to re-pose into repose. Dogs can do this, and cats, and oxen, and birds. Dumb beasts are the perfection of form when it comes to repose. They have a rhythm for it. An instinct. I once, with a small group, came across a pride of lions in the savannahs of Africa, nine felines stretched beneath a canopy of acacia branches. Each was a sculpture of repose. None slept. There was not even a hint of drowsiness in their demeanour. But neither was there a hint of anxiousness.
Each looked as if, at any moment, it could coil and spring into pure ravenousness, a wild terror of tooth and claw. Each appeared completely aware of our presence, just indifferent to it. They were lions at rest, not lions at war, and nothing at that moment was going to change their minds about that.Yes, animals are good at this. Humans, not so. Our pose is mostly two things: headlong busyness and mindless collapse. We live between the hurricane and the doldrums, but rarely in the zephyr. If I’m not careful, my days fluctuate between rush and sloth. The rush is not fruitful, the sloth not restful, and each pushes the other into a downward spiral of exhaustion. So I must re-pose, and repose. This has a biblical name. Sabbath. Reclining with Jesus I’ve a new Bible hero of late. Lazarus. Not Luke’s scabrous beggar (Lk. 16:19ff), but Mary and Martha’s ill-begotten brother. Most of his story is told in John 11 – Lazarus’s sickness, Jesus’ (reposeful) delay, Lazarus’s death, Mary’s and Martha’s upset with Jesus, Jesus’ own upset (“Jesus wept”), and then the piece de resistance: Jesus’ command to a corpse, “Lazarus, come forth!” That’s the story most of us know. But it’s the story after that one that I’ve cottoned onto. Afterward, next time Jesus is in Lazarus’s town, the family hosts a banquet in his honour. As they should. It is a gala event, a hullabaloo of food and festivity and, I should think, endless and dramatic retellings of the story – “and then Jesus started crying, and I thought, “’Oh no, what could this mean?’ but next thing he’s standing up above that sepulchre like Moses on the mountain and in a voice like thunder….” Everyone wants to be there. And not just to see Jesus. They want to get a peek at Lazarus, too. Meanwhile a large crowd of Jews found out that Jesus was there and came, not only because of him but also to see Lazarus, whom he had raised from the dead. So the chief priests made plans to kill Lazarus as well, for on account of him many of the Jews were going over to Jesus and putting their faith in him. Meanwhile a large crowd of Jews found out that Jesus was there and came, not only because of him but also to see Lazarus, whom he had raised from the dead. So the chief priests made plans to kill Lazarus as well, for on account of him many of the Jews were going over to Jesus and putting their faith in him. John 12: 9-11 I think it was Nietzsche who said that if Christians wanted him to believe in Jesus, they’d have to start looking more resurrected. Well, Lazarus here is looking more resurrected, and it’s having its effect. Three, in fact. Lazarus has become as interesting as Jesus. Lazarus has become as effective as Jesus. And Lazarus has become as dangerous as Jesus. People want to see Lazarus every bit as much as they want to see Jesus, and some want to trust in Jesus every bit as much as Lazarus trusts in him, and some want to kill Lazarus every bit as much as they want to kill Jesus. Lazarus has become a kingdom magnet, a firebrand evangelist, a holy menace. That’s why he’s my hero. He’s what I aspire to be. But here’s what I really came all this way to tell you: Lazarus does all that by doing nothing. By repose. Watch: Six days before the Passover, Jesus arrived at Bethany, where Lazarus lived, whom Jesus had raised from the dead. Here a dinner was given in Jesus' honor. Martha served, while Lazarus was among those reclining at the table with him. John 12: 1-2 What kind of a God do your neighbours see when they see you? A God who rests? A God who invites his children to rest? Or do they see, in the blur of your coming and your going, a Pharaoh-like god, driving his subjects, under the watch of taskmasters, to make more bricks, more and more, to gather your own straw? A god who never let’s you stop? If we want them to believe in Jesus, we’re going to have to start looking more resurrected. And maybe the best pose for that is repose, simply reclining with Jesus. Page 1 \| Page 2

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