2023-12-16 A Meditation on the Hidden Love Letter
“2 So if there is any encouragement in Christ, any comfort from love, any participation in the Spirit, any affection and sympathy, 2 complete my joy by being of the same mind, having the same love, being in full accord and of one mind. 3 Do nothing from selfish ambition or conceit, but in humility count others more significant than yourselves. 4 Let each of you look not only to his own interests, but also to the interests of others. 5 Have this mind among yourselves, which is yours in Christ Jesus, 6 who, though he was in the form of God, did not count equality with God a thing to be grasped, 7 but emptied himself, by taking the form of a servant, being born in the likeness of men. 8 And being found in human form, he humbled himself by becoming obedient to the point of death, even death on a cross. 9 Therefore God has highly exalted him and bestowed on him the name that is above every name, 10 so that at the name of Jesus every knee should bow, in heaven and on earth and under the earth, 11 and every tongue confess that Jesus Christ is Lord, to the glory of God the Father.” (Php 2:1–11 ESV)
Hid amidst abundant courage, all-in forays, marching orders and lancing forth, is that timeless message of I Love You. We act in this life in order that something cogent can emerge from what otherwise would be empty and meaningless; life anointing first one locale and then another, to be the humming-along Place to Be. Each locale, each strangely warming passer-by on the bus or tram, each Holy Spirit zeal and energy, upholds the would-be soldier. Who is possessed of an inner fire, a dynamo and a soul Equipped. We did it all because somehow and in some way love has to prevail. Love has to be the stronger man, therein not to balk or equivocate, but this day like any to do it all for the pride of the family unit, the romance that precedes careful living together, the mutual hearth that flourishes its residents as they therein warm.
The patron of life, the passionate enthusiast, the laughing critic, all these watch and we pray join in as marching orders identify a way to see all today’s life with a dog in the fight, with a principle, with a stern sense of “this way or that way”. The Gospel is not something negotiable. The Gospel ushers in the strangest of realities, rampant denial—it would seem—from some quarters, confusion as to what constitutes a priest or deacon, lazy refusal to forgive, clever thoughts of how to give a would-be proselyte a comeuppance, to give as good as they gave, to uphold a Divine balance sheet. Yet what our sins are is and remains a mystery.
More than that, one thing cannot be taken away from us, and that is our insistence—backed by “Here I stand; I can do no other”—lest any external abuse become an inner damnation. We are not those who deny the Gospel. We are not those who miss out on the window, the “all day long I have held out my hand to a rebellious people”, the built-in strengthening—not weakening—occasion to build up one another, to give boost of morale, via the come to Jesus moment. No laughing perversion, but a genuine sense of sides playing their hand, and on this side, in this corner, a Christianity that deals in matters of the soul, not of physicalities, but proudly refusing to give in to the temptation, to await a strong Man, strong Woman, called Conversion. Called Faith. This will boost morale. This will clip in the bud any thought of a snickering secret interpretation. God is dying away, in the flesh, far from the warmth of home; His is a museum mightily inviting, worth our time, worth waiting for and allowing to meld, to catch up in the divine music, to show excitedly this room and that piece. His is a museum Earned by the soldier’s dying breath, wherein we discern something life-affirming, progressive, sincere.
For the soldier is sincere, and makes confession in all manner of topics raised, in prayer, in off-hand mention, in words of upbuilding. Yet the scoffer hears and thinks they have invented the diagnosis; they thing the tale of a hung-over morning—the night’s excesses so numerous—is a call to impugn and attack, when it was nothing but an acknowledgment and a confession. So, for those who have given no mercy, it shall be hard to receive mercy; not because Jesus is unwilling but because there is a shuffling, and a revision of just who is foremost on the agenda.
Thus the soldier’s Power, that Power enabling her or him to look heavenward and mutter a prayer, to die nobly, to impart some spiritual gifts that we may be mutually encouraged by each other’s faith; that Power is viral and insistent, healing and getting into all minds and all who come to the table. “So heard…”; “Just once, if only…”; “Time was it was told…”. We are paupers yet a wise King spends lavishly on our behalf. We are dwelling in an invisible light, others “just don’t get it”. We are happy and calm, empowered and equipped. It is a world requiring pluck, making even the cautious coming together into something that can be abused, and frightened back a notch: two friends trying to outdo each other, or a little punchy. Yet this is abundantly to be preferred to discord, to schism, to shunning, to the end of fluidity and the beginning of battle lines drawn, trenches filled with Heaven-acknowledged souls, for a day mesmerizing with their hive mind and pack mentality.
Just try, if you will, to go the route of mercy. To go the route of grappling, like a beloved child in a playground, grappling for the first time with that proud stance, to enter the What If, to suppose just maybe it is me who is the problem. To find something—anything will do—where one is a little too personally, obliquely, selfishly, discordantly, proud. What if. What if some thoughts conveyed across a wide expanse of all those things we have yet to learn about our peer, some thoughts surmounted the ego and the desire to lead in this dance, for example. Yes, you have a fine vision, the soldier says to the would-be patron of his or her wildly strange life: to be all-on in love, penning affection and tirelessly loving, assuring, inviting, and teaching. Loving back from a precipice. Being that sphere that emerges conjoined to another sphere, perimeter breached yet in love, and with the patience of talk. See the fluid flowery conversation, where once we do recall having seen love. See the sense of someone so close to us, friendship-wise, as easily to overlook; yet our decisions, our chastities, our patience and solo journey is indeed for this soul to share one day in.