Do you remember the following lament often heard as a reply or observation in the early 2000’s?
“It is what it is…”
I don’t say it as much as I used to. I’ve discovered I don’t always like how it comes across. It can be interpreted as an acknowledgement of reluctant acceptance, or imply that something or someone is lacking in capacity or potential, or project a general apathy that suggests no matter how hard we try it’s just not worth the effort.
Now when I hear the phrase or feel the urge to use it, I try to first exercise some spiritual patience. Instead of immediately concluding that something or someone simply “is what it is” or “are who they are” I attempt a Jesus Pause. In that moment, I try to make an internal comparison of “what has it been?” and “what can it become?”. In doing so, I ponder how Jesus might evaluate the same situation, and what would He project to be the positive possibilities that I too, should consider? I may not be in the right frame of mind to reach the same conclusion He might, but a sincere Jesus Pause can hopefully delay or prevent the temptation to plunge into immediate, self-satisfying judgement.
I see a Jesus Pause as essential in the divided and often madcap moments we seem to experience more frequently these days. The gift a Jesus Pause presents is the sliver of gray between the black and white poles of absolutism. The Jesus Pause is the fertile ground where grace is found. That sliver of gray is the grace space where we might hear God asking us to slow down, listen, and look beyond the low-hanging attraction of “It is what it is” and to consider “what it was” and “what it can be”.
The Jesus Pause germinates from within, but eventually is reflected in our public Witness. Jesus demonstrates this in encounters with people like Zacchaeus and Matthew, and in a very personal way, with Lazarus. If you consider Zacchaeus and Matthew, their negative reputations were well established. They each put their own spin in their tax-collecting roles and would have had very few, if any sympathizers. But Jesus looked at them, knowing both their past and present successes and failures, and saw that they had something in their hearts and minds that God could use. Thus, Jesus risked rebuke and scorn and visited with each of them. He met with each of them on their turf. He even dined with each of them. Not only did they change their ways, but they were able to overcome past moral failures, right their wrongs, and become far more than they had previously been. All because Jesus offered them a Pause.
With Lazarus we see a different, and perhaps more personal Jesus Pause. In John 11, Jesus learns that Lazarus, a dear friend and brother to Mary and Martha is ill, even to the point of death. There are additional details that describe what transpires, but upon arriving in Bethany and knowing that Lazarus had in fact died, Jesus goes to the tomb where Lazarus’ body has been laid. Seeing his sisters and the crowd of mourners all weeping, verse 35 simply states, “Jesus wept”.
This moment is more than just the answer to the trivia question about the shortest verse in the bible…it is a genuinely human moment, where Jesus shows his vulnerability, his sadness, and his grief. It may not seem like it on the surface, but this is also a Jesus Pause.
Though John describes this scene in verse 38 as “greatly disturbing” (NRSV) to Jesus, the holy Pause that it created empowers Jesus to go beyond the sorrow of human brokenness and to invite us into the Realm of God’s grace. Even as the crowd, including Mary and Martha are skeptical of the idea of opening the tomb because of the strong smell of a four-days-dead Lazarus, Jesus ignores their unease saying in verse 40, “Did I not tell you that if you believed, you would see the glory of God?” You likely know what happens next, Jesus ignores the all-to-familiar stench of “It is what it is” (that Lazarus is dead) and calls him out from his grave, anointing Lazarus with the blessing of “what he could be”…restored and reborn to New Life!
You and I may not have discovered the ability to raise the physically dead. But through the various forms of a Jesus Pause, be it a moment to pause and think or by releasing cry-from-the-soul tears, we can claim the opportunity to offer life-giving grace to a person or a situation that has been deemed irrelevant, hopeless, or even dead by the label of “It is what it is”.
May we discover through the gifts of grace that we have received from Christ, the patience to claim a Jesus Pause…and when we are tempted to simply see what is and was in life of in a fellow sinner, we will step up and speak out to remind them, and others, what they can become.
May we love and serve others as Jesus has loved and served us…
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