2023-05-14 A Meditation on a Special Place

“When you read this, you can perceive my insight into the mystery of Christ, 5 which was not made known to the sons of men in other generations as it has now been revealed to his holy apostles and prophets by the Spirit. 6 This mystery is that the Gentiles are fellow heirs, members of the same body, and partakers of the promise in Christ Jesus through the gospel. 7 Of this gospel I was made a minister according to the gift of God’s grace, which was given me by the working of his power. 8 To me, though I am the very least of all the saints, this grace was given, to preach to the Gentiles the unsearchable riches of Christ, 9 and to bring to light for everyone what is the plan of the mystery hidden for ages in God, who created all things, 10 so that through the church the manifold wisdom of God might now be made known to the rulers and authorities in the heavenly places. 11 This was according to the eternal purpose that he has realized in Christ Jesus our Lord, 12 in whom we have boldness and access with confidence through our faith in him” (Eph 3:4–12 ESV)

A place passed over, nurtured, held high: we are licensed thus to categorize, caringly to preserve, sensitive brave notions. Notions of Gospel versus Law. Notions of a third way, when all life seems at loggerheads. Notions of revealed truth. Notions that sin is still the enemy, as it ravages time and innocence, as it makes fleeting any vision of hope, as those inducted into its pain and trials will be bold this day or one day to have a certain confidence.

It is confidence to speak, that is all the more licensed precisely because it is from a hurting and imperfect platform. It is the war-torn community member, the broken family survivor, the abused, the addicted neighbor, shouts and clamors of a zest for life over and against official channels for outlet. All wish for an inoffensive and mainline speaker, yet by a Divine hand at cards, God always introduces a third way into the situation. God always has His people, His prophets, His suffering Servants close by to the inglorious trauma. If only we would see that sensitive, passed over, categorized place. If only we would recall that once upon a lonesome we had a thought: that all life was better for the sake of Jesus. That all life took on a friendly turn, a merry angle, a tolerant vibe, when He spoke new and unusual words to us.

Therefore we are though tongue-tied at times, remembering of a better hour, an hour when all systems were “Go”, when we saw as though through a glass darkly, the right way forward, in hope, in zest for life, in strangely perfected imperfection. For we were pinched by the nails on that Cross. We were asked to go post-trauma, to yell and clamor and celebrate for the Resurrection that turned our shame into our boast. We were asked to recall that hour when we believed, that hour when we divested ourselves of pride and circumstance, refusing to differentiate ourselves from our neighbor, when we melded and lanced forth in celebratory spirit.

All that was our hidden space revealed, our secret hope writ for all the world to see, and by tomorrow back to the grind, back to the slog, back to the futile games or mediocre insistences. Insistences that we put in the hours of bible study according to a metric. Insistences that we perforate our language with empty salutes to the Highest. Insistences that we love even when in truth we cannot love, when we revile or take distaste towards those the Lord has put in our path. Such was our former unconverted self, and today we rise in the wondrous fact that we have grown, have matured via conversion, to be love and to spell tolerance. We hope, in full appreciation that some make loud cuts, preaching the Law, fearing the sins but using command rather than mercy to try to divest the community from them. Such command is salutary if only we remember Grace, mercy, and its coherent Hope. If only we thank God that sometimes the Law helps us to face the despair, the mold, the mildew, the ruin, the pain. It helps to have a strong parent who judges, so that we might walk on the correct side of that dichotomy: love, here; parenting, compassion, belonging here; and there, judgment, need for reform, separation from wild sin. Sin that leaves us reeling. Sin that overwhelms our focus. Sin that spies out a healthsome foray forward, and tries to dissemble it. Tries to entangle us. Tries to make us merely mediocre, uninspired, unbrave, unexplorative, cowering in fear, learning not to tip the apple cart, threatened and yet through all this going to that special place and seeing mighty protection and shield against those ravages.