Arrhythmia

Arrhythmia

See to it that no one misses the grace of God. (Heb. 12:15)

Christ lives in me. (Gal. 2:20)

I’ll remove the stone heart from your body and replace it with a heart that’s God-willed, not self-willed. (Ezekiel 36:26)

Catheter ablation – an invasive medical procedure used to destroy abnormal tissue from the interior of the heart of patients with cardiac arrhythmia. In other words, it’s a medical procedure designed to restore healthy heart rhythm, and the procedure works like this: an electrophysiologist (a specially-trained cardiologist) inserts two cables (catheters) into the patient’s heart via a blood vessel – one is a camera, the other is an ablation tool. An electrical impulse is then used to induce the arrhythmia, and the ablation tool, using that same electrical impulse, destroys the abnormal tissue causing the irregular heartbeat; it does so, generally, by burning the tissue – as in cauterizing, singeing or branding. If all goes well, the doctor successfully destroys the “misbehaving” parts of the patient’s heart, and a potentially fatal, future heart attack is avoided.

A friend of mine had a catheter ablation and relayed to me the pre-procedure conversation he had with his doctor. It went something a little like this: “So, you’re going to burn the interior of my heart, right?” “Correct.” “And you’re going to kill the misbehaving cells?” “That’s my plan.” “Well, as long as you’re in there, could you take your little blowtorch to some of my greed, selfishness, superiority, and guilt?” “Sorry, that’s not in my pay grade.” The doctor’s right, of course – that’s not in his pay grade. But it’s in God’s because he’s in the business of changing hearts.

Of course, we would be wrong to think this change happens overnight, like catheter ablation. But we would be equally wrong to assume that change never happens at all. It may come in spurts — an “aha” moment here, a breakthrough there. But it comes. “The grace of God that brings salvation has appeared,” Paul wrote to his young protégé, Titus (2:11). In other words, the floodgates are open and the water’s out, but you just never know when grace will seep in. Here’s what I mean.

You stare into the darkness while your husband snores. In fifteen minutes the alarm will sound, and the demands of the day will shoot you out of bed like a clown out of a cannon into a three-ring circus of meetings, bosses and baseball practices. For the millionth time you’ll make breakfast, schedules and payroll. But for the life of you, you can’t make sense of this thing called “life.” Its beginnings and its endings; cradles and cancers and questions. The why of it all keeps you awake. So he sleeps, the world waits and you just stare.

Or, you open your Bible and look at the words. But you might as well be gazing at a cemetery – the words are lifeless and stony. Nothing moves you, but you don’t dare close the book. So, you trudge through your daily reading in the same way you power through prayers, penance and offerings. You don’t miss a deed for fear that God will miss your name.

Or, you listen to the preacher. A chubby sort with jowls, a chrome dome and a thick neck that hangs over his way-too-tight collar. Your dad makes you come to church, but he can’t make you listen. At least, that’s what you’ve always told yourself. But this morning you listen because the preacher is talking about a God who loves prodigals, and you feel like the worst kind of prodigal. The preacher says God already knows, and you wonder what God thinks.

The meaning of life; the wasted years of life; the poor choices of life. God answers the mess of life with one word: grace. And to hear us talk you’d think we really understand the term. You know, don’t you? Your bank gives you a grace period. A politician falls from grace. Musicians speak of a grace note. We describe an actress as gracious, and a dancer as graceful. We use the word for hospitals, baby girls and pre-meal prayers. We talk as though we know what grace means. Especially at church. Grace graces the songs we sing and the Bible verses we read. Grace shares the church assembly with its cousins: forgiveness, faith and fellowship. Preachers explain it. Hymns proclaim it. Seminaries teach it. But do we really understand it?

Here’s my hunch: we’ve pretty much settled for wimpy grace. It politely occupies a phrase in a hymn, or fits nicely on a church sign. It never causes trouble, or demands a response. When asked, “Do you believe in grace?” who could say “No”? But have you been changed by grace? Shaped by grace? Strengthened by grace? Emboldened by grace? Softened by grace? Snatched by the scruff of your neck and shaken to your senses by grace? God’s grace has a drenching about it. A wildness about it. A white-water, riptide, turn-you-upsidedownness about it. Grace comes after you. It rewires you. From insecure to God-secure. From regret-riddled to better-because-of-it. From afraid-to-die to ready-to-fly. Grace is the voice that calls us to change, and then gives us the power to pull it off.

When grace happens, it’s not like some nice compliment from God; it’s a new heart. Give your heart to Christ, and he returns the favor. “I will give you a new heart and put a new spirit within you.” (Ezek. 36:26) You might call it a spiritual heart transplant, and Tara Storch understands this miracle as much as anyone, maybe better.

In the spring of 2010, a skiing accident took the life of her thirteen-year-old daughter, Taylor. What followed for Tara and her husband, Todd, was every parent’s worst nightmare: a funeral, a burial, a flood of questions and tears. They decided to donate their daughter’s organs to needy patients, and few people needed a heart more than Patricia Winters.

Patricia’s heart had begun to fail five years earlier, leaving her too weak to do much more than simply sleep. Taylor’s heart could give Patricia a fresh start on life, and Tara had only one request: she wanted to hear the heart of her daughter. So, she and Todd flew from Dallas to Patricia’s home in Phoenix to listen to Taylor’s heart. The two mothers embraced for a long time. Then Patricia offered Tara and Todd a stethoscope. And when they listened to the healthy rhythm, whose heart did they hear? They heard the still-beating heart of their daughter. Oh, it was in a different body mind you, but the heart was still the heart of their child. And when God hears your heart, does he hear the still-beating heart of his Son?

As Paul said, “It is no longer I who live, but Christ lives in me.” (Gal. 2:20) The apostle sensed within himself not just the philosophy, ideals or influence of Christ, but the person of Jesus. Christ moved in. And he still does. When grace happens, Christ enters. “Christ in you, the hope of glory,” Paul told the church in Colossi. (Col. 1:27)

I don’t know about you, but somewhere along the way I think I’ve missed this truth. Oh, I fully believed all the other prepositions like, Christ for me, with me, ahead of me. And, relationally, I knew about working beside Christ, under Christ and with Christ. But I never imagined that Christ was actually in me. And I can’t blame my deficiency on Scripture because Paul refers to this relationship 216 times. John mentions it 26 times. They describe a Christ who not only woos us to himself, but “ones” us to himself. “Whoever confesses that Jesus is the Son of God, God abides in him, and he in God.” (1 John 4:15)

No other religion or philosophy can make such a claim. No other movement implies the living presence of its founder in his followers. Muhammad does not indwell Muslims. Buddha does not inhabit Buddhists. Hugh Hefner doesn’t inhabit the pleasure-seeking hedonist. Influence? Yes. Instruct? Sure. Entice? Absolutely. But occupy? No.

Yet Christians embrace this inscrutable promise. “The mystery in a nutshell is just this: Christ is in you.” (Col. 1:27) The Christian is a person in whom Christ is happening. We are Jesus Christ’s; we belong to him. But even more, we are increasingly him. He moves in and commandeers our hands and feet, and requisitions our minds and tongues. We sense his rearranging – debris into the divine; pig’s ear into the silk purse. He repurposes bad decisions and squalid choices. Little by little a new image emerges. “He decided from the outset to shape the lives of those who love him along the same lines as the life of his Son.” (Rom. 8:29)

Grace is God as heart surgeon, cracking open your chest, removing your heart — poisoned as it is with pride and pain — and replacing it with his own. In other words, rather than telling you to change, he creates the change. But do you have to clean up so he can accept you? No, he accepts you where you’re at and begins cleaning you up. His dream isn’t just to get you into heaven, but to get heaven into you.

And what a difference that makes! Can’t forgive your enemy? Can’t face tomorrow? Can’t forgive your past? Christ can, and he is on the move, aggressively budging you from graceless to grace-shaped living. The gift-given giving gifts. Forgiven people forgiving people. Deep sighs of relief. Stumbles aplenty but seldom despondent.

Grace is everything Jesus. Grace lives because he does, works because he works, and matters because he matters. He placed a term limit on sin and danced a victory jig in a graveyard. To be saved by grace is to be saved by him — not by an idea, doctrine, creed, or church membership, but by Jesus himself, who will sweep into heaven anyone who so much as gives him a nod. And he does so but not in response to a finger snap, religious chant, or a secret handshake. You see, grace can’t be stage-managed, and I’ve got no tips on how to get grace. But the truth is, we don’t get grace; it gets us.

Grace hugged the stink out of the prodigal, scared the hate out of Paul and pledges to do the same in us. And if you fear you’ve written too many checks on God’s kindness account, or drag regrets around like a broken bumper, even huff and puff more than you delight and rest, and, most of all, if you wonder whether God can do something with the mess of your life, then grace is what you need.

And grace is what he has to remove the “misbehaving” parts of your heart. And in the process, he saves you from an otherwise incurable heart disease.

Grace,

Randy