Becoming The People He Made Us To Be
Dear High Street Family,
Last Sunday we launched our Fall Series, Becoming Real, where we're exploring and studying the lives of those who encountered Jesus. And how in each encounter, in each season, Jesus unveiled more of His heart and theirs, too.
Watch Last Sunday's sermon "Nicodemus Encounters Jesus" from our series Becoming Real
In the great parable by CS Lewis, The Great Divorce, Lewis invites his readers to consider what it means to become real in the kingdom of God.
The main character of the parable is Lewis himself, who lives in a fictional city of Grey, in which everyone is individualized, isolated, and growing more and more lonesome--only later he realizes this is Hell.
And, per chance, he gets on a bus that mysteriously soars up up up into a whole new world of color, of substance of reality.
When Lewis and the other passengers step out of the bus, he glances around him at the hills and the trees and the rivers, and realizes that he and all of the others appear translucent as ghosts.
To them, the grass feels painfully real, the water is hard as rocks, and even walking in this reality hurts his feet...
Reality itself, heaven, is more real than they are.
At this point, Solid People come from the distant hills, each one a person they knew in their lives. They beckon their friend, brother, spouse, etc, to follow them on the journey of becoming real.
The Solid People say, “Will you come with me to the mountains? It will hurt at first, until your feet are hardened. Reality is harsh to the feet of shadows. But will you come?”
"I can promise you [no assurances]. No sphere of usefulness: you are not needed there at all. No scope for your talents: only forgiveness for having perverted them. No atmosphere of inquiry, for I will bring you to the land not of questions but of answers, and you shall see the face of God" (C.S Lewis, inThe Great Divorce).
I love this story because it reveals something inherantly biblical, something we so easily miss, even as Christians...
That God--who created everything--is taking us on a journey in His love to become the people He made us to be.
How do we know this?
Because of Jesus.
Everyone He encountered saw themselves as they never realized possible.
The sick become the healed.
The rejected become the accepted.
The angry become the forgiven.
The divided become united in Him.
Jesus simply changes everything because He is everything.
The whole earthly reality we rely on is upside down in His Kingdom.
Those who don't feel they belong are the first invited in.
Those who admit they are blind are the ones who see.
Those who are persecuted for His sake are the blessed.
Those who show mercy to others get mercy themselves.
Jesus reveals to us who God the Father is, while also revealing, at the same time, who we are. And what we could become.
This is why Hebrews 11:1, classically called the Hall of Faith, begins with:
"Now faith is the reality of what is hoped for, the proof of what is not seen." (Hebrews 11:1, CSB)
"Heaven is reality itself. All that is fully real is heavenly" -C.S. Lewis.
And as a church, as we get to participate in His Life together, we are on a journey to becoming real.
A journey that is happening right now, and is never-ending.
See you Sunday,
Dave