Tension
“For the law was given through Moses; grace and truth came through Christ.” -John 1:17
The other day I hopped off the exercise bike and was amazed at how tight my upper legs felt. They were so tight that I began to wonder if I would be able to walk. The strain of the 15 minutes of exercise had caused my legs to tighten up. Muscles were being stretched and challenged. If my muscles could speak they would probably have said, “What the heck? Return to your ascetic lifestyle promptly!”
The reality with exercise is that we need to feel that burn. The burn signifies that there is life. Only by stretching those muscles and getting the blood to flow can we experience muscle growth and be on our way to a healthy way of life.
Anyone who exercises though knows that exercise alone will not do the trick. The other balancing force to a healthy lifestyle is a balanced diet that seeks to control portions and eliminate unhealthy foods (that so often load down our diet). If a person exercises and doesn’t eat properly they will actually end up killing muscles and eliminating healthy body fat because they fail to supply their body with the nutrients that are essential.
Likewise, if a person only controls portions and never exercises they will never be able to have that healthy stretching of muscles and, over time, they will witness muscle decay and a build up of body fat. By no means am I an exercise guru but it seems that there is a necessary tension that exists between these two poles, exercise and healthy diet, that begs of us to live in between, to live in tension, so that we can achieve a healthy lifestyle.
Isn’t it amazing that tension is what we avoid but, in reality, tension is what we so desperately need. Tension creates balance. Two images of tension would be a rubber band or two magnets of opposite polarity facing one another. In the middle is a stretching, a pushing…a tension.
I have been pondering tension here lately. If you apply this spiritually it provides immense freedom and direction to our faith journeys. Jesus was 100% God and 100% human…tension. God is three-in-one…tension. We are spirit and flesh…tension. Scripture speaks of human responsibility and God’s foreknowledge…tension!
Tension is all around us. The design of our universe attests to a delicate tension. Gravity creates an amazing tension that keeps us on this spinning rock. Eliminate gravity and not only do we go spinning off into oblivion but our very bodies would dissipate. Gravity literally holds us together.
The earth is tilted in such a way to provide an adequate provision of sunlight to the entire planet. Our atmosphere has a delicate tension of elements so that you and I can breathe and life can be sustained. The earth is located in just the right location in the solar system for life to possible; closer we fry, more distant we freeze…you get the point, tension!
Let’s get a little closer to home. Think of relationships. Healthy relationships are marked by two or more people who enjoy each others company and neither focus too much on themselves or too much on others. Friendship is reciprocal, reciprocity involves give-and-take, this give-and-take involves tension.
Why, then, in our spiritual lives are we afraid of tension? For our walks with Christ there are great moments of mystery and wonderful experiences of God’s immanent presence. Jesus is as close as the air we breathe and also, at the same time, eternal Lord and King of the entire universe. Jesus is present in Spirit and absent in body. Our very Lord and Savior models incredible tension!
So, what does it mean for us to experience Christ? No surprise, I believe a little tension goes a long way. For me, Scripture alone fails. You must always have the Spirit to come alongside and illumine the text. The Spirit alone also fails. You must have a grounding, an accountability, from the words of Scripture. It is only in the balancing, creative tension of these two poles that we truly experience the reality of Christ in our lives.
The Brethren Church, of which I’m proudly a member, shows this tension in a unique way. Scripture is the outer word. The Spirit is the inner word. The tension between the two testifies to Jesus Christ, the Living Word. If we focus too much on the Outer Word we’re guilty of legalism. We proof-text all kinds of Scripture and never fully experience their import or their context. If we focus too much on the Spirit we spiral into a type of mysticism. People’s experiences of the Spirit become a little too relative and negate the importance of accountability and grounding.
A true experience of Christ brings these two worlds together and holds them in a delicate tension. Scripture is inspired and illumined by the Holy Spirit. We test the experiences of people according to Scripture to see if they are genuinely of God. Just as the tension, the burn if you will, of exercise produces a healthy life so also the tension of Word and Spirit produces a healthy life for Jesus Christ. The more we are shaped by this creative tension the more authentic and longlasting our lives will be for Christ in the different circles we find ourselves mingling!
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