Bench Pressing Jesus
Growing up I was fed a steady diet of promises that if I simply lifted the name of Jesus high enough, everything would be OK.
I grew up in a conservative Evangelical world and although a good portion of my church ministry experience was spent in the Reformed Church of America, it too reeked of this disturbing stench of Christianity.
How do you lift Jesus' name higher?
Consistently memorize Bible verses is like a 10 pound bench press.
Add to it weekly church attendance for 20 pounds.
Read your Bible every morning for 25 pounds.
Throw a weekly Bible study into the mix for 30 pounds.
Remain insanely positive about all of life's problems for 50 pounds.
Share your faith without reservation to everyone you meet for 100 pounds.
Volunteer in church for 150 pounds.
Tithe weekly for 200 pounds.
Confess your sins for 215.
Read all the top Christian books for 225.
Pray for miracles for 250 pounds.
Have enough faith to see miracles happen for 300 pounds.
... On and on this list goes and the promise that was bred into me was that if I did these things on a consistent basis without fault, God would come through for me time and time again.
AND.
If God didn't come through for me ...
If the person I prayed for didn't get better.
If I didn't land the job.
If problems entered my marriage.
If my finances were a dumpster fire.
... The obvious reason was because I failed to bench press Jesus high enough and so I should go back to the above list, see where I was lacking, and pour all of my attention into that one thing so that I could lift Jesus' name that much higher and see him barge into my biggest problems and make a way in my life where there seemed to be no way.
For the longest time I believed this - 100%. I had my list of things and I did my best to bench press Jesus and lift him higher than anyone else around me. Sometimes I would see great things happen in my life and assume it's because Jesus was pleased with how high I had lifted him and other times when life seemed to be falling apart around me I crawled back to the list to see what I was failing at.
I'd confess.
I'd repent.
I'd vow to pour myself into it.
I'd go back to bench pressing Jesus higher and higher and higher.
I believed in this kind of Jesus for a long time, the one that needed his name to be bench pressed before he'd "come through" for me and answer my prayers and make the paths of my life straight ... I believed it for a long, long time and then my wife and I had a miscarriage.
Yes, our baby died.
And I remember being really mad at God. Not just mad, but pissed. I had literally done everything on the list. Heck, I was even in a doctoral program at a seminary studying to become a literal "doctor of the church". If anyone had been the poster child for bench pressing Jesus, it was Glenn Siepert.
I went to church.
I had pastored churches.
I read my Bible.
I memorized my Bible.
I read all the books.
I preached in my church.
I led Bible studies.
I got a preaching scholarship in seminary.
I mentored people.
... I did all the things and was bench pressing Jesus higher than pretty much anyone I knew in my life, and yet God still let my baby die.
As I left my wife in the waiting room of the hospital so that I could go out into the cold parking lot to get the car, a reality set in:
Either Jesus is a fraud or the evangelical church that insisted I had to bench press his name higher and higher to get him to "come through for me" and make my paths straight was a fraud.
Over the course of the years to come, I drifted away from the church and closer to Jesus. And in that time I've come to realize that the fraud isn't Jesus, but is very often the Church that touts his name. Jesus has walked with me through the doubts and questions and fears of deconstruction and rethinking of my faith all the while much of the Church has often ...
Mocked my doubts to my face and behind my back.
Laughed at my questions.
And shamed me for being afraid.
Jesus has whispered to me that he really doesn't want his name bench pressed and is much more interested in helping me live the life of love and grace that he modeled, a life that is lower and lower, closer to those who have been pushed down and outcast by the church. He's promised to never leave me and never forsake me and to cry and weep with me as the dreams and Lazarus' of my life get buried in dark, cold tombs.
Jesus isn't a fraud, friends. He's the real deal. And the reality is that he doesn't need his name bench pressed. His yoke and his burden are light. I don't really have an extravagant point to make today except a simple truth that I try to tell my daughter every day - Christ is always with you, and you're never alone. You're good just the way you are. Just be you.
Much love,