“5 And while some were speaking of the temple, how it was adorned with noble stones and offerings, he said, 6 “As for these things that you see, the days will come when there will not be left here one stone upon another that will not be thrown down.” 7 And they asked him, “Teacher, when will these things be, and what will be the sign when these things are about to take place?” 8 And he said, “See that you are not led astray. For many will come in my name, saying, ‘I am he!’ and, ‘The time is at hand!’ Do not go after them. 9 And when you hear of wars and tumults, do not be terrified, for these things must first take place, but the end will not be at once.” Jesus Foretells Wars and Persecution 10 Then he said to them, “Nation will rise against nation, and kingdom against kingdom. 11 There will be great earthquakes, and in various places famines and pestilences. And there will be terrors and great signs from heaven. 12 But before all this they will lay their hands on you and persecute you, delivering you up to the synagogues and prisons, and you will be brought before kings and governors for my name’s sake. 13 This will be your opportunity to bear witness. 14 Settle it therefore in your minds not to meditate beforehand how to answer, 15 for I will give you a mouth and wisdom, which none of your adversaries will be able to withstand or contradict. 16 You will be delivered up even by parents and brothers and relatives and friends, and some of you they will put to death. 17 You will be hated by all for my name’s sake. 18 But not a hair of your head will perish. 19 By your endurance you will gain your lives.” (Luke 21:5-19 ESV)

The exposure to individual brilliance, this is the far dream that brings us to enlist in the cause. Some “knack” or “proclivity”, some “unique trait” or “differential”, and we are those with our heads in the clouds a bit around a Hopeful Tomorrow. We Hope: for coming into our own, for fulfilling our destiny, for meeting our allies and our team. We Hope for all the world’s structures and peaceful progress, progeny alert and dutiful, just to get by with a little help from some friends.

The exposure to such a bright individual “in the wild” causes us to do a prejudicial double-take: surely you are flawed in some way; surely you are careening about in confusion just like so many I work with; surely you are denying Christ. For, to acknowledge our dream is to be stark front and center on a solo stage, spotlight on us, as we fascinatingly delineate the Creed, the Saints, the Scriptures, and the Man.

Christ for us, therefore the enlistee’s exposure to some Notional Brilliance, some Thought of Individuality that Matters, some Cognition of wheels a-turning and getting things done “‘round here”, is an exposure to Estate of Lord stripe, of Lord’s variety, of Christ’s variant. And, too, push comes to shove: Christ cannot deny Himself, but can we? Can we assert ourselves to be nothing more than undeserving, spoilt “heirs” of all that Scripture foretells and assures us in? On the contrary, words matter and so do our “tests” levied at others: that isn’t what makes you such a bright star! See that to the bored or unsaved as of yet would-be soldier, the judge of mankind or the pundit, the scoffer and the beholden-to-sin banker, what we are exasperates, it cultivates self-righteousness, it fishes out utterly self-ruinous at times behavior, behavior nonetheless accommodated if only it will “expunge the prophet!”. Kill the prophet. Go back to our boredom.

But the soldier is never so catty or capricious as thus to imagine an enemy: the soldier delights to know all mankind is seen through Christ’s eyes, as forgiven for their momentary affliction, their momentary blasphemies (“I didn’t even hear it, much less give audience to the balderdash!”), their weak-kneed needs. The soldier “imputes” righteousness, or rather… to impute suggests it wasn’t deserved, and Christ’s people literally know all judgment is dealt out to His saints, and they literally do judge each other and pronounce each other Clean. It wasn’t, after all, so bad! It was all in your head!