JR. Forasteros - March 1, 2015
What's in a Name?
What labels do you carry in your soul? For good and bad, we all have many identities we’ve taken (or been given) by people in our lives. We begin to inhabit these identities, to take on the labels as who we are, even when they are toxic. The stories of Abraham and Simon (whose nickname is Peter) demonstrate how we discover who we truly are: by following the one who knows us fully and truly.
From Series: "Can You Hear Me Now?"
Throughout history, God has made covenants with humanity. These covenants are promises to be faithful, to trust, to live together in peace. And over and over, humanity has broken those covenants. But now that God has come in Jesus, he is restoring broken covenants, healing broken relationships, reestablishing peace between God and humanity. This Lent, we look to Jesus to transform us and make us whole.
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Today’s about Ghost stories. Though they appear in many forms, the quintessential ghost story involves the spirit of a dead person who’s stayed around (usually a haunted house) because they have unfinished business. Maybe they have to deliver a message or ensure proper burial or get revenge. Whatever the case, once their business is complete, they leave into the afterlife.
Unlike our previous two monsters, today we’re not ghosts. Rather, to quote Peter Rollins,
We are the haunted houses. — Peter Rollins
We move through life collecting hurts, wounds and scars, evidence of pain inflicted on us by other people. Some may be slight, exaggerated in our heads – maybe someone who cuts us off or says something cruel or who causes us harm by accident. Others could be huge, life-altering. A spouse who left. An abuser. And there’s a whole range of hurts between.
Whatever their source, however legitimate or not, these people, these hurts don’t just exit our lives.
We carry them around with us, in our heads and in our souls. They haunt us, returning again and again out of the ether to drag us through the past, to relive history, to reopen old wounds.
The problem is we don’t know what these ghosts want. We don’t know how to resolve their business and get them to leave us. We can’t escape their haunting – especially if the person who hurt you is still a part of your life.
