2024-09-20 A Meditation on Plain For All to See

“7 On the twenty-fourth day of the eleventh month, which is the month of Shebat, in the second year of Darius, the word of the Lord came to the prophet Zechariah, the son of Berechiah, son of Iddo, saying, 8 “I saw in the night, and behold, a man riding on a red horse! He was standing among the myrtle trees in the glen, and behind him were red, sorrel, and white horses. 9 Then I said, ‘What are these, my lord?’ The angel who talked with me said to me, ‘I will show you what they are.’ 10 So the man who was standing among the myrtle trees answered, ‘These are they whom the Lord has sent to patrol the earth.’ 11 And they answered the angel of the Lord who was standing among the myrtle trees, and said, ‘We have patrolled the earth, and behold, all the earth remains at rest.’ 12 Then the angel of the Lord said, ‘O Lord of hosts, how long will you have no mercy on Jerusalem and the cities of Judah, against which you have been angry these seventy years?’ 13 And the Lord answered gracious and comforting words to the angel who talked with me. 14 So the angel who talked with me said to me, ‘Cry out, Thus says the Lord of hosts: I am exceedingly jealous for Jerusalem and for Zion. 15 And I am exceedingly angry with the nations that are at ease; for while I was angry but a little, they furthered the disaster. 16 Therefore, thus says the Lord, I have returned to Jerusalem with mercy; my house shall be built in it, declares the Lord of hosts, and the measuring line shall be stretched out over Jerusalem. 17 Cry out again, Thus says the Lord of hosts: My cities shall again overflow with prosperity, and the Lord will again comfort Zion and again choose Jerusalem.’ ”” (Zech 1:7-17 ESV)

It is anyone’s guess whom we trust and whom we distrust; a clever antipode (enemy), would they go so far as to be convincingly “friendly”? Are we, after all, to see a vast field of innocents, no brutal spycraft nor quizzical intel gathering in this lot? Therefore we—not claiming possession of all the answers—wear our hearts on our sleeves; first, make sure the homefront is locked down, we might argue. But truth is, to the fresh-faced recruit to Tomorrow’s war, wisdom is on a precipice, caprice is one of any number of inner wars to be fought over: to have by nature Gladsome Will, final testament Benign and Positive, to remember, though but children ourselves (in God’s eyes) we are called to lance forth, on wings and a prayer, that our Discernment will be largely correct, and in any case, a learning-on-the-fly march forth.

We can easily work up a sense of debt. We feel we will be ready once having reached a perfect stasis of having confessed and readied our soul with fasting. However, that hour in fact will be too late and perhaps will never arrive. Instead, we must learn to swallow our pride and to appear before the King pockmarked and corrupted by some accounts, not so much by what we have seen and heard, but by things we have said and done. Oh, so I am still too lustful to approach the Throne. Oh yeah, I am still too high off a sinful streak to meet the Master. Oh right, I am still too just blah and winnowed to the bone to speak to my Lord.

Times changing, distant wars echoing with the cost in terms of human souls, the culture around us—on the bus, at the office, riding about town—suddenly does enter that mystery realm of lockstep versus antagonism: some ways we are in a dance number unto that Present Day’s war, and some ways we are under lugubrious alter-egos who do love but that with a heaviness we must either Christ-like bear as a burden, or pray ourselves into a cocoon of some Certainty it will not be a mortal or final Touch, thus to be involved and part of that sad but promising dance.

And we, those found if nothing else then Grateful, for the occasion to Thrive, to Flourish, do so even as others literally imagine whole worlds of sin for us. Because our chief halting-speech and impossible binds to explain away, is one of Conversion: if we seem lonesome, well that is because we are in-between, frozen in time, and moreover trying with all we have to honor that first teaching: start with the Cross. Make no compromises to earthly reassurances, but let the theologian inside of you testify and preach in everything, only if absolutely necessarily using words.

One person out of a crowd may Listen. One soul out of many may put paid to our efforts. One friendly amidst a crowd is lightness of being, unto the ability to say we are standing firm and not trying to please everyone, but just to plant a flag that one day may bear some fruit in the lives of our hearers.