2025-01-16 A Meditation on Counterpoint

“2 And I, when I came to you, brothers, did not come proclaiming to you the testimony of God with lofty speech or wisdom. 2 For I decided to know nothing among you except Jesus Christ and him crucified. 3 And I was with you in weakness and in fear and much trembling, 4 and my speech and my message were not in plausible words of wisdom, but in demonstration of the Spirit and of power, 5 so that your faith might not rest in the wisdom of men but in the power of God.” (1 Cor 2:1-5 ESV)

Christian deeds surmount, there is a narrative constantly tapping at the mind, and it honors Christian ethic, Christian forgiveness, Christian service. See how it pleads, but does so earnestly, with Belief that a Resurrection will occur. That is, the self-giving, the dying to self, the meek Offering into a world tainted, a religion blasphemed, a peace upended: this gently pleads and, if it exasperates does so because of how sincere it is.

It was never the intention to “be clever” or to “covet”: it was always the plain innocence that bedeviled and drove crazy. For, the enemy, the enemy is “crazy” at times and at other times the “look what you made me do” is crazy as well. Birth pangs, as the principled soldier cannot simply rest on her or his laurels: first, there was the life upended around just who is “the Jew”, who is the “Religionist” and who the heathen. This much was scriptural. Then there was the life upended around who was “good citizen” or “moral”, and who was the instigator. This much is also scriptural. What the would-be braveheart must do, is to be constantly willing to put aside her or his goodness past, and bravely to do combat with a Present Scourge, a Present Query most hurting, a Present Taunt or Instigation. That is, we are always both permanently in column “Saved”, and permanently, always having to re-prove ourselves. Today, if you hear His voice…

There is therefore something to Earn, to Boast in… yes, at times our tit-for-tat benevolent peace-keeping mission, our somewhat belligerence to counter belligerence, this much is par for the course; we are not always “doing Christ” or doing “His deeds” quite. Except that He, too, got tired and rested, got weary and chased out forcibly, saved up those few Exemplars for the right time and place. This we too do. We are not always obsessed to Be Christian, only to wait upon one or two public signs and wonders, of peacekeeping triumphing over an enemy’s aggression, of non-violence deucing an enemy’s belligerence, and so on. And this becomes the entire message.

Then also we cannot always “afford” the boast that we are the Christian ones, we the patient ones, we the measured response ones. War is hell, and hectic: it was some long ago prophet who spoke over our lives a blessing, or a bible study encountered that promised acceptance and mercy, or an evangelist who baptized us readily: we are fighting without a higher pride, only to know in the thick of things that we are those in column “Saved”. Our fight is Blessed, our outlay Meaningful, our repugnance towards evil Divine. We sleep walk at times, and go with the flow at times, we are cadenced all together at times, and making solitary decisions at times; in all this we are more than conquerors through Him who loved us. In all this we are Forgiven at once any Error or Belligerence, any injured pride or crazed lancing forth. God is for us, and we His people… we do not fuss that some are in safe houses, carefully adjudicating and measuring every action… if we cannot thus afford to do, all the more so are we forgiven the In The Field decisiveness. We are decisive and we are punctilious, principled from our mother’s knee, and innocent of evil from our father’s knee. To be the sons and daughters. Of a Holy Cohort. And in this, to register some Christian Testimony into an enemy’s awareness and circumnavigating all around their processing of life. Win with Forgiveness, no blase peace but an Active Exemplar. Of Christ. Of refusal to negotiate. Of a patient ability to cease to tickle or undo if that is provoking inimical deeds. Of a patient bearing of one another’s burdens, if that is where our pride should dispel. We, of all people, most need forgiveness. And we invite others to join us at that Fine Table. For the wedding feast. For the scourge now buried. For the ready acknowledgement, all are sinners. All get a bit greedy when real wealth or potency is on the table. All get a bit cagey when a history of sin is beginning to be revealed. All fear that the Gospel mandate does not apply to them personally, that it is somehow a joke or something that in real life never occurs: to be forgiven.