Meditation, a Key to the Spirit’s Power: The Story of the Archbishop of Myanmar

(Every week a new lectio divina video just like this one comes out through email. The texts are connected to the lectionary for the following week. This gives pastors and lay people a place to push play and let the Word begin its beautiful work BEFORE Sunday. Did you know that whole churches are doing this together now? To receive these videos I’ve called The Slow Word Movement and corresponding encouraging weekly, subscribe on the right on the front page of the blog. )

 

In 2001 my husband and I braved the after-9/11 travel anxiety and flew with fellow seminarians to Myanmar, a country that’s 95% Buddhist. I remember the lines of Buddhist nuns dressed in pink, carrying small shiny black pagodas begging for their breakfast. I remember the feel of the red carpet on my bare feet as we climbed hundreds of steps up to the Shwedagon pagoda. Then, at the Anglican seminary in Yangon, we sat on hard couches having tea in Archbishop Than’s front room. He was then a professor, possibly a dean, and although we were told that he had been a political prisoner, it wasn’t until this last week at Holy Cross Cathedral I had the privilege of hearing his full story.

(The Archbishop of Myanmar, Stephen Than on the left, standing with GAFCON primates.)

**And I record his story right here for you dear Slow Word Listeners because Archbishop Than’s story is one of transformation through holding onto a Word of Scripture. It’s lectio divina made simple. It’s lectio divina infused with resurrection.

His story illustrates where meditation meets the power of the Spirit.

 

And oh, some of us, dear friends, are trudging through waist-deep suffering and Archbishop Stephen Than’s account of chewing on the Scripture in prison can become the hand we need to grasp as we climb on out. The repetition of Spirit-infused truth became the way in which the Spirit transformed a brain, new neural pathways were formed, and the lungs of the dead took in breath.**

 

Here’s the Archbishop of Myanmar’s story:

 

Stephen Than Myint Oo and his brother had chosen opposing sides in Myanmar’s civil war. His brother fought for the Karen Rebellion. Stephen chose the Myanmar Military. As a twisted reward for his loyalty, the Myanmar government threw him into solitary confinement. They suspected spying. Over the next few years Stephen was tortured, starved, and held without bathroom facilities, without water, without food, without light. And all without a formal conviction.

 

Sunday morning Stephen Than stood at the podium at Holy Cross Cathedral underneath the the Jerusalem cross, “You never realize how fast you can lose your faith if you hold it all in your head.” Before the military, Stephen had been the leader of the Myanmar Province’ youth program, preaching and leading young people to Christ. His faith felt so solid he put it in his hands and fed people with it.

 

“But you never know if your faith is strong until it is tested through great suffering.”

 

All his “faith,” Stephen explained, had just been a system of logical tenets memorized and memorialized. And laws and logic are easily washed away. After months in prison he was now an atheist.

But, his head was now in a constant fight with his heart. In his heart was still the kernel of belief, the kernel of Christ’s presence. That fight, he said, was full of anguish and the pain was so immense he planned to commit suicide.

 

Suddenly, out of the unholy silence came a word, a word which could only come from God: “Come to Me all you who are weary and I will give you rest.” (Matthew 11:29)

 

Stephen picked it up like the manna it was, like the very Presence of the Bread of Life, and chewed the phrase over and over. “Come to Me all you who are weary and heavy laden.” Every repetition, he explained, became a doorway for the Spirit. A little more life breaking through.

 

The Archbishop stood on Holy Cross’ red carpeted steps and opened that morning’s scripture to Deuteronomy 8, ‘He humbled you, causing you to hunger and then feeding you with manna, which neither you nor your ancestors had known, to teach you that man does not live on bread alone but on every word that comes from the mouth of the Lord.”

 

“As I was chewing on God’s words,” Stephen Than explained, “they became manna.” Soon a heavenly light flooded his mind and he had a full encounter with the Living Christ speaking over him saying, “Stephen, I am with you.”

 

“I am with you” and Christ walked through the walls of his prison gathering him up. “I am with you” anthe resurrected One broke into his prison cell.

And as we know, when the Presence of Christ breaks into a room, that room, no matter how hopeless, becomes heaven.

 

The Kingdom of Heaven had come near.

Spirit-infused energy surged through his body and he began to preach: “I have seen my Jesus,” and although his guards thought this was the proof that he was mentally ill, some right there in prison came to bow at the feet of Christ.

 

After Stephen preached his story Sunday morning, he ended by turning towards us, “Chew on the word. Meditate on the Word. Repeat the word. It will become fresh manna leading us straight into the Presence of Jesus.”

**Where do you need the power of the Spirit to break through your darkness, dear friend? Hold out your hands for manna, put it on your tongue and chew.**

May the seeds of the word grow in your life this week friends.

Warmly,
Summer Joy

 

(All photos found here and were taken by GAFCON’s amazing photography team)