Skip to main content

Zelda, Jesus, and How We Are Made for the Journey

Image result for Zelda breath of the wild

I am not afraid to admit it.  God has been speaking to me through Zelda.  No, not really.  The voice in the newest version of the game is from someone else, an enchanting voice that emerges at the very beginning and will be with you the whole time.  But, I'm getting ahead of myself.  Let me start over, at the beginning.

Like all true spiritual journeys, this one begins with an awakening.  

A shimmering light appears before your eyes, and you hear someone imploring you:  "Open your eyes!"  You have been asleep for a very long time, longer than you can imagine, longer than you dare consider.  And as you emerge, you learn a few things very quickly.  

One, you are very much a novice.  You are just beginning.  You do not have much, only a few necessities.  But that is okay, for you are also being given a gift - a type of guiding presence and map.

Two, there is a dire mission before.  A grave calamity has befallen the world, and you will have a part to play in bringing light back into the world.

Three (and this part is very important), there is someone who believes in you.  And that same someone is waiting for you.

...

Yes, it's just a video game, but Zelda is tapping into something that is elemental to all of us and all of life:  a quest.  A journey.  And this is where God has been speaking to me.

Because we are all made for the journey.

We can forget that.  Over time we too can fall asleep ... yes, even us "Christians."  In the beginning, we are thirsty for the adventure.  We want to walk with Jesus.  But, if we are not careful, through the years, we will step off the path.  We will settle for something less.  

Most of the time, what we end up settling for is just "going to church."  We do it because we have some faint memory of the journey, but if we're honest there isn't much aliveness in it.  So we tell ourselves what is needed is more commitment.  We'll serve on a committee or step up into leadership, but that rarely solves the problem.  We are still aching for the adventure.

Or ... 

We find ourselves entering deeply into the middle part of our life.  The journey sounded exciting but that was before kids and bed-time routines and heaps of laundry lying in the bathroom and another meal to make tonight.  That was before annual reviews at work and interpersonal conflicts with our boss.  Life is just happening to us most of the time, and if we are lucky there may be some time at the end of the day to taste a bit of the adventure in an episode of This Is Us or another rerun of The Office.

... 

There was once a man who had fallen asleep spiritually himself.  Outwardly, his life looked like a success.  He had a good career and by most standards he was well off.

The only problem was that internally he felt asleep.  

Then, something miraculously happened.  Actually, someone happened.  He heard a voice.  He heard someone telling him to open his eyes.  

That man was St. Ignatius of Loyola and the voice he heard was from his Savior, the Lord Jesus.  And from that point on, he realized that his life was meant to be a quest.  He would be given a gift to guide him.  There was a purpose for his existence.  And, most importantly, there was someone who believed in him.  

As he came alive, Ignatius knew he couldn't keep this experience to himself.  So, he did something about it.  He came up with an adventure, a quest, to present to others.  He called them his exercises, and for the next ten weeks on Wednesday nights, my hope is to give us the chance to go on this adventure together.

Ten Wednesdays.  Ten steps of the journey.  Ten opportunities to step in a new direction this year.  Ten opportunities to hear the voice again.

"Open your eyes!"  

A grand adventure awaits you.  The grandest of them all:  the road called discipleship.  The path called living as a Christian.

~Pastor Wes  

Comments

Post a Comment

Popular posts from this blog

Acts 2:42-47 - Questions for Reflection & Study

This past Sunday, we took a look at Luke's first summary passage in the story of Acts:  chapter 2, verses 42-47.  Here, Luke is presenting a billboard of what the Church looks like at its best.  He is trying to convince Theophilus that Christianity is worth his attention.  The early Church captures what all of us are looking for, whether we know it or not.  This is a close community that truly cares for one another, where everyone truly is seen as a brother and sister, and where no one person is considered more or less important as the other.  Needs are being met.  There is joy in their fellowship.  Take a moment to think about a time in your life when you experienced the joy and blessing of a deep, loving community?  Where was it, and what made this community so different?  What role did you play in this community? Luke tells us the disciples "devoted themselves" to four essential practices.  The Greek word for "devoted" ...
Post a Comment
Read more

Touchdown Jesus

For the second consecutive year, I traveled up US 31 to South Bend, Indiana on a beautiful fall day. I traveled with Curtis Lawrence, and we went for the sole purpose of watching the Notre Dame Fighting Irish football team take the field. Now, I must note that it was my childhood dream to attend Notre Dame. Even loftier, it was also my dream - like many young boys growing up in Indiana - to suit up for the Fighting Irish. Surprisingly - even with such hopes - I had never actually visited the campus. For the first thirty years of my life, I never set foot on one of the more storied and celebrated college campus and football meccas in America. That absence was broken, though, when I made that first trip up to South Bend last year. Let me tell you: even after all those years of waiting, the campus and football stadium at Notre Dame lived up to all the out-sized expectations I had. Like most places of prominence, Notre Dame Stadium really cannot be described through words. It is so...
Post a Comment
Read more

The Gifts of Austerity

I’ve had it.   The Canadian Geese finally pushed me over the edge.   That was my tipping point.   I was driving back to the church after running a few errands on my lunch hour, and there they were flying through the sky.   Steadily flying south in packs of ten and four and six. They were escaping what was feeling more and more like an existential play.   No Exit .   Waiting for Godot .     That sort of thing.   The sort of tale where you never really emerge.   You.   Just.   Wait. It’s been almost a year now since this whole COVID journey began, which seems both ridiculous and unreal.   There’s no possible way it hasn’t been a full year.   There’s no possible way we haven’t come up on the one-year anniversary of when they shut down the schools and we fumbled our way through our first on-line service.   There’s a word that captures where we are right now.   It’s not a fun word.   It’s a winter wor...
Post a Comment
Read more