Theology in a windy stairwell

I have spent the better part of the last few years attending a school that spouts a motto of "In all things Christ pre-eminent."

This motto could be the proponent of some of the biggest misconceptions people have about that place.

People look at that motto and think of happy little conservative Christian homes. They think of modest girls training to be homemakers and of preppy boys who'll grow up to be businessmen or pastors. They don't think of things like grief or sexual abuse or addictions or divorce. These are not the images that are conjured up by that phrase.

But that is the reality. The beautiful reality of that phrase is that Jesus is not in some preppy little homeschooled Christian box. He's out there in the brokenness. And his people are broken. We fail. We have sex before marriage. We lie. We envy each other and we gossip. We get drunk sometimes. We fail to be loving. Sometimes we're bitchy. We come from broken backgrounds where things like abuse, porn, divorce, and filth are formative in our lives. And Jesus is there. He doesn't wait for us to clean up before he comes to us. He meets us where we are. Because the reality of that phrase is not found in a church. The reality of the meaning of that phrase is the first bit- the ALL. Jesus isn't something to be relegated to the corner shelf so we can get at him when we feel bad and we need him. He's there to comfort us when the pain from our brokenness and our shame overwhelms us. He's there to encourage us when we're struggling to break our addictions- and he's there accepting you still when you falter back into them. The reality of that phrase is that when he's part of your life, he's pervasive. There is no stone left unturned. He's part of your eating, your abstaining, your imbibing, your conversation, your writing, your sex, your sinfulness, and your sanctity. He's there in ALL of it. And he's not going anywhere.

The reality of Christ's pre-eminence is in all of the times that you got looked down on or punished or beaten up or abused- because all of those things happened to him. The reality of his presence is there in every humbling experience and in every time you're inadequate. His reality is there no matter how dirty the world gets. And no matter how much we pretend to have been polishing it, he's still there under all the grime. And that's the Jesus I want to follow.