Restoring Intimacy with God

(Referencing the book of John, Chapter 20, verses 19 - 31)

Intimacy. What does it mean to you? What moments does that word conjure up in your mind? For many of us, intimacy is too sacred a commodity, and we can and should hold dearly to those times in our lives when we have experienced it well. Some of my favorite moments of intimacy are ones that I remember with our children when they were very young. When we would put them to bed, it was a very long ritual. First there was the story. It could be anything from fairy tales to Sesame Street, from Beauty and the Beast to Sinbad the Sailor, and then the inevitably circuitous conversations that these stories would prompt. Then there was the lullaby; and then the second lullaby, and maybe a third if my voice hadn't completely given out by then, and then the prayer. And if one of our daughters wasn't sleepy enough yet, which was way too often, there would then follow some deep theological question, or a question about science which, despite my husband's and my weary brains, and our insi stence that we all needed to get to sleep, would intrigue us into staying up still later just because we all got so interested in the topic. Those late night rituals stand out, in my mind, as some of the strongest bonding times that our family experienced. We all taught each other how to be intimate.

Scripture calls this intimacy, "innocence," as in the innocence first shared by Adam and Eve with God in the garden, or the intimacy shared by mother and child in the dance of bonding during the child’s very early life. It is the free and flowing interchange between two truly devoted friends. It is the close whisper that every human heart longs to hear, but will grow cold, hard, and eventually dead if it goes for too long without it.

Thomas Keating, the founder Contemplative Outreach, in his book, Intimacy With God, describes the basic dilemma of our human condition. He states that it is one where ". . . we come to full reflective self-consciousness without the experience of intimacy with God and without consciously sharing in the divine life."

Christianity Today columnist and author, Philip Yancey speaks of intimacy in terms of engagement with God. He writes, "I used to worry about my deficiency of faith. My attitude is changing, though, as I begin to understand faith as a form of engagement with God. I may not be able to summon up belief in miracles or dream big dreams, but I can indeed exercise my faith by engaging with God in prayer."

He goes on to say that engaging with God can feel sometimes like a hug, and sometimes like a stranglehold. In Jacob’s wrestling match with God, God ends the match only at the end of the night, when day is about to break by giving Jacob a crippling touch to his hip socket. But God, being God, could have ended that wrestling match with Jacob at any time during the night. Yet God chose to wrestle through the whole night with Jacob – perhaps, Yancey says, because God wants to be held as eagerly as we need to hold on.

When we are holding on – engaging in prayer, spelling out to God the details of our complaint, elucidating our doubts as Thomas did in the presence of the other apostles (in John 20: 19 - 31) perhaps it is just that moment when we are inviting God into the secret, painful, even angry and resentful cracks and crevasses of our lives – places where God longs to be invited in order to touch us and hold us with tender intimacy.

The entire Easter story rings with notes of intimacy. From Mary, the sister of Lazarus pouring costly perfume on Jesus’ head and feet, and wiping it with her hair, to his washing of the apostles feet, to his surprisingly intimate call to Mary in the garden of his resurrection, we see astonishing moments of intimacy.

Go with me now to another moment of intimacy in another garden, and recall another calling by God as an invitation to intimacy to a beloved, but this other calling comes at a very different kind of a new beginning.

We read in Genesis 3 verse 8 of how Adam and Eve "heard the sound of the Lord God walking in the garden in the cool of the day" and how they "hid themselves from the presence of the Lord God among the trees of the garden. But the Lord God called to the man and said to him, "Where are you?"

Now, whether taken as a literal interpretation of the story of Adam and Eve, or a metaphoric one, there are lessons to be drawn from this text which have clear relevance for our lives today.

When God asks Adam, "Where are you?" it is not to gain information.

God, who is all-knowing and all-seeing knows exactly where Adam and Eve are. So why does God ask them that question? I believe this question is asked in order to reveal to them where they are, so that they may become conscious of their lack of intimacy and be intentional about recognizing their need for it. And their answer indicates that they have hidden themselves away from God’s presence in fear and in shame. God’s question comes as a directive for Adam and Eve, and for all of the Adams and Eves after them, to allow their relationship with God to mature, not to stay hidden away in fear and shame, but to remain connected even though they will have to leave the garden.

Fast forward now to our other garden scene from Easter Sunday (John 20:1 - 18) where Jesus asks Mary, "Woman whom do you seek?" Again, the question is not asked to gain information. Jesus knows very well who Mary is looking for. Rather the question is asked to bring her out of her own sense of fear and inadequacy, and to bring her to a clear and conscious sense of intentional relationship seeking. And then he speaks her name! From beyond the grave, Mary hears her name being called by the one she knows to be her Lord and Master. This speaking of her name is immediate, intimate and decisive. It rouses her from her quagmire of confusion and sends her off, confident enough to be the "Apostle to the Apostles!" She knows that she is known. She perceives from the depths of her interior perspective that she is recognized and cherished. This is the essence of intimacy! To know that you are known; to perceive from the depths of your interior perspective that you are recognized and cherished.

And now we turn to Thomas. Dear Thomas, hiding in the habiliments of his own doubt and chagrin over Jesus death. He sounds like he’s angry and even defiant! Wouldn’t you be? How dare all of them get together without him?! His challenge about not believing unless he can put his finger on the nail marks, and put his hand into Jesus’ wounded side come off sounding more like a rebuke to his apostle brethren than a plea for help. But Jesus, only eight days later, goes toe to toe with Thomas, and repeats his every word, offering to give him exactly what he asked for, thereby letting Thomas know that he is truly known. And he says to Thomas ". . .do not be faithless, but believing." This response to Thomas pierces the bubble of his anger and defiance, causing him to become, once again, vulnerable and open to the continuing call for greater intimacy with the risen Christ.

It was too easy for the apostles, and it is too easy for us to become too familiar with our own interpretations of who Jesus was and is. Because we have heard these stories so many times, we easily make the mistake of thinking that they have nothing more to teach us. But God is the "living God," and this "living God" seeks to find ways to surprise us back into open wonder and vulnerable intimacy with all that is sacred.

God’s question of Adam and Eve in the garden is a beginning of the long road to intimacy. Man and woman are first asked, "Where are you?" We are asked to locate ourselves with regard to God’s seeking for us. It is the beginning of a relationship which has as its goal the interior sharing of a depth perspective that one knows and is known, that one is recognized and cherished. There are strong echoes of the full flowering of this intimacy in Jesus’ prayer while still with the apostles after the last supper, in John 17, where he says,

"I do not pray for these only, but also for those who believe in me through their word, that they may all be one; even as thou, Father, art in me, and I in thee, that they also may be in us, so that the world may believe that thou hast sent me. The glory which thou hast given me I have given to them, that they may be one even as we are one. I in them and thou in me, that they may become perfectly one, so that the world may know that thou hast sent me and hast loved them even as thou hast loved me."

This dynamic universal sense of intimacy is cosmic in its scope. It begins to take on the flavor of the intermingled nature of the Trinity. Jesus prays that we eventually not only become intimate with him and with the Father, but that we also become so truly intimate with each other, that we "become perfectly one." Now there’s a God-sized prayer!

The second question we are considering is the one that Jesus asks of Mary in the garden, "Whom do you seek?" There is a powerful transforming dynamic in the speaking of our soul’s desire. God yearns for us to yearn back for God. Much of the time, we may find ourselves in the embarrassing position of feeling lukewarm about the Creator of all things and beings. Like the woman who has lost the coin in her house, that thing which we may have highly valued at one time in our life has somehow been misplaced, or been covered up by the accumulation of much to do. Perhaps we mistake an overfull schedule for an abundant life! Or, like the lost sheep, we have simply wandered away. Or, like the prodigal son, we may have blown out of the house and wasted our fortune on riotous living. "Whom do you seek?" is a challenge to clean the house of our soul! "Whom do you seek?" is a calling to remember that we truly belong to the living God. "Whom do you seek?" may be a rebuke if our answer is too small. In that case, it is important to remember what follows – and that is the calling of our name and the recognition that we are known at our most intimate level by one who cherishes us.

And thirdly, we have not a question, but an invitation. After Thomas is reassured of his intimate relationship with Jesus, Jesus then speaks an invitation which is meant for all of us. "Do not be faithless, but believing." We are then called blessed, because our faith must be exercised in a way that Thomas’ could not possibly have been. His task was to overcome his doubt while still being able to see. Our task is to overcome our doubts while yet not being able to see.

God longs to touch us in those hidden places in our lives where we feel most fearful, guilty, abandoned, alone and confused, or angry and defiant. God asks us, "Where are you?" "Whom do you seek?" and says, "Do not be faithless, but believing."

Amen