2024-04-11 A Meditation on Trials

“2 Count it all joy, my brothers, when you meet trials of various kinds, 3 for you know that the testing of your faith produces steadfastness. 4 And let steadfastness have its full effect, that you may be perfect and complete, lacking in nothing.” (Jas 1:2-4 ESV)

It is no secret the massive shifts and timely progress made on all sides all around us: life marches at times quickly and at times slowly, apace towards Reckoning; we are those ready for a War of the future because we have been trained up by a Holy Spirit in basic training and readiness by way of cogent awareness of how the Christian and his or her spirit is persecuted, hated for bright outlays, belittled and dismissed, Crucified. Our war then shall be met gladly, not boasting but Ready and aware of a hidden reckoning finally being honestly coped with. No more secret suffering, we might counsel ourselves: see it, instead, in the headlines: that God is on trial, that His people are under duress, that His servants finally are known for what they should be known for, principled testament. Conflicting witness. Thankless but genuine labor.

On brighter days the faith is popular and beloved, appreciated by all, winsome and contemporary. And then, in the back alleys and side gigs, the faith also is hated, frustrating, and pathetic. Our call as Christians is never to forget ours not only may but properly should invite scorn, invite mockery, invite belittlement. And if this were all, we would as per custom shake it off and sigh a bit and say that, yes, such is our lot in life. If only we were honest, that such a lot we cannot and may not bridge by our lonesome. We cannot do it by ourselves, apart from the Holy Spirit, who puts His women and men on the frontlines yet with a blessed assurance that no trials shall come our way but that He is Lord and Author of them. He allows; He purposes; He consigns; so that first we might relish to have suffered for the sake of the Name, but second that we might wearily accede unto Holy Assurance and Blessed Estate. To an assurance we’d be too proud to mozy on up to otherwise. To a consignment we’d be too self-sufficient to warm to otherwise. To a rather strange personal take-ownership mentality, that we fully own up—not ninety percent, not ninety-five percent, but fully—that Christians we shall be, and Christians we have been.

Because too easy is the furtive and searching betrayal of whispers: the betraying whispers unto an unbelieving sordid lot, that here is found a pathetic believer. Here is found one not in line with Nietzschean Overman, Ubermensch, striving and personal lordship. Here is found someone who simply looked away from the eyes-on-the-conflict mode, to do a good work, to dare to believe simply and whole-heartedly, to live up to and into a Different Tack, a tactical alternative, a missional strangeness, an emissary underloved.

Because it is not ourselves we boast in, but Christ Jesus, who held the fort down and manned the ramparts Today for that strange brew of composure-met-with-urgency, strife-life, war time mentalism, flair a threat or perhaps a loving Fashion statement, no threat intended but rather affection for the crew, cleanliness for the Respect met out, appreciative and warlike only in bravado that is affectionate, gregarious, rambunctious in every good sense, un-docile, un-tamed, wildeyed in the wake of prayer, emerging Sanity and Commiserating, unto each other; we love because He loved us. So we have these treasures and, who would not love like us to be a part of the cipher?

Yet then the grinning devil who hates on Christians, for whom no “obvious” evolutionary spiritually advantageous trope is acceptable or tolerable, who knows those crazy “believers” as a hotbed of insincerity and contradiction, of hypocrisy. Who we startle to discover, for our Joy is complete and panoply of effervescent wonder. We are startled: why not “get” it? The new Spirit? The new Lordship? The strategic offshoot, secondary concern to man the ramparts? As a missional immediacy writ into our fate? We serve, because He showed the way! He showed the timeline of exaltation and of destruction. He showed the urgent paradox unfrightened by, that God is for us, that Christ is our Heavenly Advocate, that all things work together for good… and to the cynic, to the atheist, so much is appreciated for Christ’s own cynicism towards religious authority, Christ’s own atheism towards the totems of the temple and its denizens, Christ’s own illegal and furtive existence on the fringes until… come the light of day come the anointing come the march and triumphal entry… and the immediate Call to the Deck, floored and caught red-handed, as too hopeful for a calculating judge. As too Tomorrow-oriented for a pragmatic demagogue. As too gentle in approach for a militaristic authority. So we are those Informed, as to being gentle minus allowing the crucifixion to occur quite yet. We know not to repeat their mistakes, perhaps, while also repenting where we have hated the weaker outlets and voices, the prophetic meek grandeur hated and talked down to and approached with evil intent. Our natural inclinations are to kill; our natural inclinations are to ostracize; our natural inclinations are to belittle and use group-think to exclude. Yet He showed that no grave could hold down the Movement. No grave could be the final arrival. No grave could be the cynic’s victory, for their victory shall not be appreciated nor ever arrived at, not televised, not noted, not writ in books: the futile victory has been replaced with the Resurrection Victory.

So it is not just any weakness that is contradicted by Resurrection: it is very named and loved types of the weaker sorts, the poor, the marginalized, the ones suffering for righteousness’ sake, the orphans and widows, the foster children, the prophetic voices and those who celebrate a Risen King. In these we place hope, of a sort aware that we ourselves are in some guises “rich” and “entitled”; the meek, however, shall inherit the earth. And these even shall show a judgment not partial, not discriminatory, not against the more entitled estates per se, but honest about what each one did in the flesh, honest about each one’s faith or lack thereof. With faith come persecutions. With faith come rather hateable binds. With faith come things we would not have signed up for had we known, perhaps, but He is the loving Guide and Father who intended our victorious ascent on the latter days’ arrival. Unto a perch beloved and respectable, part and parcel of a community Gifted and Blessed.