Illuminators Accompany Others

The following video transcript has been lightly edited

All of us need people that are willing to travel alongside us through the ups and downs of life. In the moments that are super challenging where we just can't be alone and we need someone to help us get from A to B, but also through the moments of joy and monotony that every week brings. To have a friend or a family member that's willing to listen to us, hear us, engage us, helps us feel seen, helps us feel fully human.

David Brooks in his book talks about these kind of people as people who are skilled at the art of accompaniment. That they're willing to walk alongside someone, reflect and engage and help them feel like they're fully human. And so that's, we're going to talk about today. How do we become people who accompany others? Because that's what illuminators do.

And we're gonna look at a passage in John chapter 11 in which Jesus shows up and he accompanies Martha and Mary to the journey of their brother's death. Now it's a remarkable story because in the end, it leads to resurrection. And of course we can't bring that about in other people's lives, but that power that we see in Jesus actually is the thing that empowers our ability, I think, to accompany others. And so I want to call out three principles that we'll see. First, that no matter who you are, and no matter where you are, God is willing to meet you in the mess. And this is empowering for us, as well as a message that we get to share with others. Two, when we look at the way that Jesus engages Martha and Mary, what we learn is that humans are designed to enter into the emotions of others. And so we want to learn how to increase our skill there.

And then finally, accompaniment is about traveling through life with others and waiting for resurrection. Let me sketch this out a little bit. So Martha and Mary, their brother Lazarus is dying and they send for Jesus. Now, by the time Jesus arrives, Lazarus has already died. And both Martha and Mary take turns coming out to meet Jesus. And when they do, they ask the same question. They're like, hey Jesus, if you had been here, my brother wouldn't have died.

Really asking like, hey, where were you? How come you didn't show up? What I think is awesome about the story is that Jesus doesn't rebuke either of them. He doesn't say, hey, do you know who I am? How could you even think of asking me these questions? Instead, he engages them. And Martha, who's this A type, take charge, come after the thing, she engages Jesus first.

And he has the same conversation with her that he does with Mary, who hangs back and waits. And so the lesson there, for us, is that God meets us in the mess. Jesus shows up to Bethany, and Bethany means the house of suffering. And of course, all of John is about the Word, the Logos, the wisdom of God, the light of the world showing up into a world of brokenness.

And so we see Jesus do this again and again. And so our ability to accompany others, to travel alongside them and wait for resurrection, is fueled by this reality that God meets everyone. Regardless of their personality type, regardless of their situation, where they are.

And so my question to you would be, who needs to hear that in your life? And perhaps you need to hear it. This reminder that in the midst of the challenge that they're in, that God is present. Now it might be, just like Martha and Mary, that it doesn't look exactly as they had hoped. But God is there. That God does not run away from us, but God runs towards us.

Secondly, what we watch is we watch Jesus engage both Martha and Mary and the people around him with a sense of empathy. When Mary comes out and shares with Jesus, we will see that Jesus gets to the place where he's emotionally deeply disturbed. And he weeps. He fully enters into the moment. And when we think about this, Jesus could have done a whole lot of other things. Jesus could have said, Hey, I've got this, don't worry about it. Jesus could have said, Hey, I'm too busy, I gotta keep going. But he did neither of those things. Rather, what he did is he chose to enter in to the moment and reflect the emotion that's all around us. And this is a skill that you and I have to learn. We have to learn that being fully human is entering into the emotions of others.

And so that means to enter into the emotion of others, we have to exit being stuck in ourselves. I'll admit that this is something that I've had to work at. That my own perspective on emotion was often that emotion was just a distraction, that it got in the way of success and productivity and pushing forward.

So I've had to learn to reflect the emotion that others are experiencing. We can do this a few ways. First, I would say that we have to learn to identify our own emotions. The better you are at understanding your own emotions, the better you'll be at connecting with the emotions of others. And then secondly, what we want to do is we want to recount our story and we want to remember the times that we've felt different things, whether that's sadness or anger or being discarded, whatever it is.

And these things remind us like, Oh, this person might be feeling this. And so I now know how to reflect that back because I know how it felt for me. And so I can enter in to the moment because if we want to be good at accompanying others, we have to grow in our, our emotional and, and mental health. We have to do this work.

And my challenge to you would be to think through like who in your life right now needs you to get better at entering into their life with empathy. Maybe it's your spouse, maybe it's your kids, maybe it's someone at work or a friend. But I would just offer up the observation that I think often when we're out in the world, we're on our best behavior, but when we're at home, that's when we struggle the most to enter in to the life of the others that are with us and share in their emotional experience.

And so, be on the lookout this week of how you might enter in and accompany your spouse or your kids along the way as they travel through the challenges of life.

Finally, what we see in the story is that Jesus fully enters into the moment, and then from there he travels along with Martha and Mary. Ultimately, we see Jesus perform the miracle of raising Lazarus from the dead, which is incredible. But what we're informed of in this story is that Jesus is the person, he is the one, he is the Messiah. Jesus is the one who is life, who in life is resurrection.

And so when we think about accompanying others, what we want to do is we want to be a people who are empowered by that future, that future of resurrection.

And that's what we see in the life, death, and resurrection of Christ, the whole, it's promised that the whole world will experience resurrection. And so we want to be people who wait and watch for resurrection showing up now.

Now, resurrection shows up in two ways. One, it's the ultimate hope, and that we're all waiting for. But that ultimate hope is God's reality, and that reality breaks into our day to day. And so the kind of resurrection that we might be looking for is a new job, a renewed relationship, a chance at forgiveness, a treatment that will bring a cure. All of these are the, are different forms of resurrection that meet us in our day to day.

And so we want to be the kind of people that are willing to enter in and engage emotionally and travel alongside. And help people see that the way they're feeling today, the moment that they're experiencing right now, it's not going to last forever. We don't have to get stuck in the past of the, Oh, if I had only and should have, but rather hope lies out in the future, in God's future, in which resurrection and love conquer the day.

And so we want to be the friends that are willing to walk alongside, enter into the emotion of the moment, just as Jesus entered into the emotions of Martha and Mary and give the word of hope.

And so in order to do that, we need to do three things. We need to be good at being patient and present. And the reason for that is that. It's going to be hard. We can't fix everything. And so we have to be willing to just show up in the lives of others.

Second, we need to be people who are good at choosing hope. Having a vision for hope. So that we can hold on to it ourselves, as well as reflect it to others.

And thirdly, we need to do this emotional homework so we can engage others emotionally. If we do those three things that's going to empower our ability to be people who are great at accompanying others through life. Being able to see them and help them feel fully seen. Hey, I hope this week was helpful for you and I look forward to sharing again next week.Take care.