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There’s a method of prayer called Centering Prayer. This is a form of prayer that takes root in texts like The Cloud of Unknowing, which dates back to the Middle Ages. Centering Prayer involves emptying your mind to let God in. To do this, you generally take a word to help center you. Mine is “Come” from “Come Holy Spirit.” Then you let the thoughts that come into your head wash past you like you’re in a river until the point you’ve emptied your mind to the point you can even let go of your word as God enters in. Basically, it’s like meditation, except the ultimate goal is to have something, God, to fill your mind in the end.
It’s best to think of Centering Prayer like training to be closer to God. It’s generally recommended you start with shorter times, somewhere between 10 and 30 minutes. Not every session, or sit, ends with your mind being fully emptied. In fact, I only remember one time this happened for me in my life. It was about 10 years ago when I was serving in Montana. It was during Lent, and we were waiting to do one of our weekday Stations of the Cross. While we were waiting, I decided to try to get a sit of Centering Prayer in.
I’m not sure exactly how it happened, but it happened. I was siting there, having let go of my word and empty to the point of God coming in.
In that moment I was pretty aware of the awesome presence of God. There was something wonderful about this presence. There was also something majestic to the point that a part of me was yelling, “Abort, abort!” Fortunately I had been warned about this, so I continued letting these feelings pass me by so I could continue to feel God’s presence with me.
And then the Stations started, thus my sit came to an end. I’ve had one, maybe two experiences since that have come close to this connection, but none to the same degree.
When we encounter God directly, there is sometimes a sense of fear. On one hand, God is loving and kind. On the other hand, God made us and can just as easily unmake us. That is why C.S. Lewis’ description of his Christ-figure Aslan as a lion is so apt. On one hand, Aslan is Good, yet he is also a lion, and not a tame lion at that.
God is beyond us, and that can be a terrifying thing. This is what the author of Hebrews reminds us of today. God isn’t something that can be touched. God is even one who caused Moses to tremble in fear. Many of us who have had deep encounters with God know what Moses felt on some level. Some, though not all, who choose not to have a close encounter with our Lord may do so out of this sense of fear.
Yet God wants to shake us out of that fear. God wants to consume out of us all our sense of this life, as Hebrew tells us. God wants to sift through us until all that is left in us is that which desires to be with our Lord.
That is why what Jesus says and does is so important in the Gospel today. Jesus doesn’t wait until after the Sabbath to heal this crippled woman. He does so now so that she won’t have to wait another moment to be reconnected with God in her life. He realizes that the Sabbath isn’t kept out of a sense of duty or because it is a strict rule for us to follow. We keep the Sabbath because this time of rest affords us the opportunity to move closer to the Lord. The Sabbath is all about our relationship with God. We would all do well to remember that.
If you ever worry that God doesn’t care for you deeply, just look at Jeremiah and Psalm 71. There God is demonstrating to Jeremiah, and to us, that the love of the Lord is so strong that it goes beyond the realms of this time and space. That’s how deeply God cares about you. God cares so deeply, that he looked after Jeremiah so that he might do the work in this world to help bring us all back in relationship with our Lord.
God is our creator and so far beyond us. That truth can be a frightening thing. Yet God’s desire is that we shake off that fear. God’s desire is that we move beyond all that keeps us from our Lord’s love for us. God has worked hard to help restore us into our mutual relationship with the Lord. God is working hard to do so still. God is working in us and molding us so that we can come closer to our Lord. Our task, then, is to move beyond all that is keeping us back so we can feel the full power of our Lord’s deep and abiding love for each and every one of us.