A Burning Day

     There’s a scene in one of the J. K. Rowling's "Harry Potter" books where Harry is alone in Professor Dumbledore’s office.  He meets Fawkes, a Phoenix, for the first time.  While he is admiring him, Fawkes bursts into flame and becomes an ash heap.  Harry freaks a bit, and Dumbledore comes in.  Dumbledore tells Harry that Phoenix’s go through seasons… they burst into flames and then they are reborn from the ashes.  He says to Harry, “Pity you had to see him on a burning day.”

     A burning day.  I've been thinking Christian's are Phoenix-like.  The first "burning day" is our salvation.  By God's magnificent grace we are moved to the place of faith.  In a moment, we die and are regenerated, a new creation from the ashes of sin and death.  Witnesses of such a transformation are dumbfounded.  Some appalled.  But we rise.  And we begin again.

     But I think I continually experience "burning days".  And I often want to say to those around me - "Pity you had to see me on a burning day."  I don't appear to be at my best.  So, for the most part... I withhold my burning experiences.  I dodge witnesses.  This has been my recent modus operandi.  I actually set apart today as a "burning day."  In my mind, it's a needful, yet painful thing.  The meter on my heart and head registers full.  There's no space left for another emotion, another "to do", another should, must, want, or would.  It's almost paradoxical for it's not the right kind of fullness.  It's a fullness that is empty.  Just stuff.  A hodgepodge of pent up emotions unprocessed, of to-do lists left undone, of duty piled upon grief.  It requires a good emptying.  Or a burning.

     Romans 12:1 says, "I appeal to you therefore, brothers, by the mercies of God, to present your bodies as a living sacrifice, holy and acceptable to God, which is your spiritual worship."  Recently I've had my attention drawn to the command to keep the Sabbath holy.  My pastor has earnestly taught on what he has termed "Gospel Rest" - sabbathing. 

     I think my Sabbaths are burning days.  For me, a burning day is Gospel rest.  It is my spiritual act of worship.  It's a burning sacrifice followed by a resurrection.  It means throwing my hands up in repentance and surrender, wetting the wood of the cross with my tears, falling on the altar of God's grace, and trusting as God burns up my "flesh" in the truth of the Gospel... the truth that says "Come to Me... and I will give you rest.  Take My yoke upon you - not the world's yoke, not your own, but Mine - and learn from Me."  It's the truth that bears a cross and births a disciple; the truth that His grace is sufficient; the truth that Jesus is My highest joy and my deepest satisfaction; the truth that there is no rest for My soul apart from Him and that apart from Him I can do absolutely nothing of eternal significance.

     Like Fawkes on his burning day, rising from the ashes follows.  In wonder I will be able to get to my feet... smaller... more clumsy... more fragile... and more dependent.  But I will be at rest in Him, having "calmed and quieted my soul" (Psalm 131:2a) in the certainty of the Gospel of Jesus Christ, and growing toward the next burning day.


Copyright 2011 Sharon Denise Dorminy