2023-06-07 A Meditation on Conscription

“13 Therefore, preparing your minds for action, and being sober-minded, set your hope fully on the grace that will be brought to you at the revelation of Jesus Christ. 14 As obedient children, do not be conformed to the passions of your former ignorance, 15 but as he who called you is holy, you also be holy in all your conduct, 16 since it is written, “You shall be holy, for I am holy.” 17 And if you call on him as Father who judges impartially according to each one’s deeds, conduct yourselves with fear throughout the time of your exile, 18 knowing that you were ransomed from the futile ways inherited from your forefathers, not with perishable things such as silver or gold, 19 but with the precious blood of Christ, like that of a lamb without blemish or spot. 20 He was foreknown before the foundation of the world but was made manifest in the last times for the sake of you 21 who through him are believers in God, who raised him from the dead and gave him glory, so that your faith and hope are in God” (1 Pe 1:13–21 ESV)

Looking far and looking wide we observe that our world is in need of healing, with religious and cultural disputes, turf war, fear of the unknown or the foreigner; all this as we believe that war begins in our own hearts. It is our own hearts that discover a residence. We don’t peer down from a neutral perch and choose sides; we are scrappy and fully invested in the standing we have adopted. We are Touched, Affected, Invested, Plain-speaking, Sincere.

We hope our posture and standing is of genuinely fresh religion. We hope our posture is one of suitable patient words. Conscribed into God’s Army we make haste to begin our work, certain that good cheer rules the day and that God is making measured assessments between the would-be sides. We go for broke, as field agents and brokers of a Message: God invested in our world, and easily therefore overlooked, talked down, unwilling to acknowledge the Jesus-event. Therefore the paradox, that we fight for His dominion and reign, while staring intently at our own errant hearts and bending over backwards to assume the best in our colleagues on the other side of the aisle.

For Jesus to win begins with Jesus borrowing from us all our personal agency: we are heirs of an innocence, a truthful outlay. Our selves confessed and shriven, are persons innocent of greater evil, having touched bedrock, having then experienced that miraculous Resurrection in our own hearts; no longer nervous to impose our will on others, but certain it is God’s fight we warm up to. God goes before us. God inspires and speaks. God continues to dare us to hope even as we are humbled in this battle or that battle; dare to believe that He humbles for a season, in order that our duty-bound selves can Rise Up new creations.