2023-08-11 A Meditation on Words That Come and Go
“22 Having purified your souls by your obedience to the truth for a sincere brotherly love, love one another earnestly from a pure heart, 23 since you have been born again, not of perishable seed but of imperishable, through the living and abiding word of God; 24 for “All flesh is like grass and all its glory like the flower of grass. The grass withers, and the flower falls, 25 but the word of the Lord remains forever.”” (1 Pe 1:22–25 ESV)
Words come and go, the Christian tantalized by the power of words to shape a destiny. In the malaise or lingering hour, the correct recollection is that a Life has been once taught us, a Life beyond any former lives that we cling to. This Life is meaning and Truth precisely at the hour in which we face a Decision: to the Gospel? Or to the self-invented route? We blabber and ecstatically pronounce, that today’s Mission and today’s Word, from our meek and self-deprecating self, is utilizing that Power of Words to redesign and reshape and recollect what Truth there is in Christ Jesus, in His Gospel, in His urgency of life deeds all the way unto the Cross.
Again, words come and go. We imagine that there is a bit of a glimmer about us, when recollecting the Power of words to design and give hope. We pray, and that with determination (for the opposite route is a slant unto disbelief); never may it be said that the Christian homebase is sufficiently covered, that we may seek elsewhere.
No, the soldier is longing for a Gospel that honors not the strong, but rather the weak, that loves us especially when our flaws are on display, that heals us of fears and of that bump in the night, that begins precisely where we are this Day ordained to Believe. To disciple. To change lives. To overcome dead-end routines.
We exhort, yet not as though unto a preaching platform of Law. The Law is that spirit that says, I must fix things materially, not spiritually. The Law endeavors to solve life’s awkward or brokenness with a perhaps somewhat blind reassurance that in fact the good deed was done, the patterns of life were lived into without any longer any error. Indeed, this has some room to save, but what saves is the message of meeting each other precisely where that Law and good deed cannot be sufficient. We meet, because we have been taught the Good Word. We suddenly have it alight upon us that our fellowship is with this Jesus, just arrived in our thoughtspace, or that Jesus, long hidden under a mantle of good works.
Somehow, our Jesus is holding out hope, masked hope, hidden hope, for an opportunity for that Word to be heard. It is the Word that peeps out later in the day, after our time of prayer and meditation. It peeps out, and feels that just maybe it is a more sufficient Word. Maybe it is doing good battle for our behalf against a terrorizing self-doubt or a timorous wandering. We wander, amidst those we have hurt in times past, amidst those we long to acknowledge in some fine staid or upkeep. We again wait on that Word that has power to reinvent and resurrect. If only our wayward hearts would begin just for once to attend to the more subtle facts of the matter: that our presence is holy; that our words, if few, are nonetheless aware and cognisant; that our gestures and prayers lifted up, do resolve our selves into Gospel ministers, teaching without a word, listening though appetite and impatience tempts away.
The soldier, then, knows that spirit that Crucified our Lord, as a spirit over and against the Risen blabbering, rather, Risen brandishing of pure Truth of the Soul. The Soul hears it told of a place where all self-hatred or unpleasant memories past, are lifted, resolved unto today’s Peace. We turn a corner—because of the Word preached to us—and in this we are suddenly clear-sighted, little concerns have manifest and immediate resolution, for the Cause lies before us, and with a pat on the back or a simple embrace, as we are directed by Scripture, we light a candle in the Way.