2025-01-19 A Meditation on Barriers Unrelenting

“3 Finally, my brothers, rejoice in the Lord. To write the same things to you is no trouble to me and is safe for you. 2 Look out for the dogs, look out for the evildoers, look out for those who mutilate the flesh. 3 For we are the circumcision, who worship by the Spirit of God and glory in Christ Jesus and put no confidence in the flesh— 4 though I myself have reason for confidence in the flesh also. If anyone else thinks he has reason for confidence in the flesh, I have more: 5 circumcised on the eighth day, of the people of Israel, of the tribe of Benjamin, a Hebrew of Hebrews; as to the law, a Pharisee; 6 as to zeal, a persecutor of the church; as to righteousness under the law, blameless. 7 But whatever gain I had, I counted as loss for the sake of Christ. 8 Indeed, I count everything as loss because of the surpassing worth of knowing Christ Jesus my Lord. For his sake I have suffered the loss of all things and count them as rubbish, in order that I may gain Christ 9 and be found in him, not having a righteousness of my own that comes from the law, but that which comes through faith in Christ, the righteousness from God that depends on faith— 10 that I may know him and the power of his resurrection, and may share his sufferings, becoming like him in his death, 11 that by any means possible I may attain the resurrection from the dead.” (Php 3:1-11 ESV)

The makeshift barriers we put up, these reckon with a perennial, persistent urging: confess! Repent! Be made new! And the Christian genius regards the fact, the Barrier called Christ, this Barrier willingly dies and is made new. It is a paper-thin wall, a breakage point Embraced: Oh yeah! To worry, to try and safeguard, to persist and to confront, these things are all handed over to Christ’s Cross: we make glide and elision most sublime; we make feng shui or coherence, patterned alliance, symmetries Divine. The paper-thin wall, it Surrenders, that greater Truths may emerge. Of a moral nature. Of a reckoning with some obstinate Force. Of reckoning with some Mandate or Imperative: Oh, yeah! It would all, we say, seem “Easy”, were it not that Higher Truths shall emerge. Higher Facts shall glisten, shall shine, shall embrace.

Our makeshift barriers, then: it is no surrender to an alternate, inimical, viewport, but rather it is some License to see things “their way”. A gently rolling perpetual wave wears away at the breakwater, at the shoreline, at the building’s foundation. And for us, to embrace Cruciform Life together, this is to be All-In, to be Composed, Calm: to remember the affection of an Encounter, that any despair voiced, this an enemy latches on to, and tries to turn to his or her advantage, tries to seed the fight, tries to egg on the confrontation. To hide this much: that we aren’t after all, at each other’s throats in fact. Mister cynical, Miss pessimistic, we aren’t at each other’s throats. It is an underestimate of how much platonic or romantic, either combined, experience with personal equanimity, group cohesion, non-murderous intent, we have experienced, loved on, walked through: they, they haven’t had this Gift.

And we are no less hard core, no less frightful, if we just may for a moment reflect. That we embrace our paper house because it just is right, just feels right, when the hurricane comes, when the falling limbs of a tree, puncture the wall, that we were already going with the flow. We were already surrendering to a Higher Power. We were already Stronger because of the vibe, the commotion, the momentum. It was us, after all, that dropped that tree’s limb. It was us, crucified our Lord. It was us, who suddenly backed down: geez, I killed Christ. And if we did, then we too are forgiven.

For an enemy fails on the half-way theology, the “Worship” minus the “Cross”. We, too: we worship. We understand One Man, One Woman, is never to be surrendered, even for a city or a country. God works through His anointed ones. And if we bend the knee, if this makes uncomfortable, then let it go. Let the walls tumble and the Peace shine into the makeshift homestead. We were, after all, two peas in a pod, we and our Father in heaven; only this, that we, too, were nerdy and focused, non-physically kneeling perhaps, but Equal in the moment. Because of the plain Authority present. Because it was a spirit passing on to spirit, a shared taste of the Master’s spirit. And this electrified the Witness, the Apostle, the Missionary. The soldier.