“Thus says the Lord, who makes a way in the sea, a path in the mighty waters, 17 who brings forth chariot and horse, army and warrior; they lie down, they cannot rise, they are extinguished, quenched like a wick: 18 “Remember not the former things, nor consider the things of old. 19 Behold, I am doing a new thing; now it springs forth, do you not perceive it? I will make a way in the wilderness and rivers in the desert. 20 The wild beasts will honor me, the jackals and the ostriches, for I give water in the wilderness, rivers in the desert, to give drink to my chosen people, 21 the people whom I formed for myself that they might declare my praise.” (Isaiah 43:16-21 ESV)
Lit up, self-correcting, depth diving: to speak Cogent and Compassionate words is to build a theology on “no matter what”. No matter the level or progress of the fast, use faith in facts to mine and divulge deeper truths than anything that caffiene or meat can inspire. We are inspired, because we are a strange breed of evolved being, now married to cruciform ideological evolution, the latter evolution not quite perfect or forever striving and spiralling upwards, but rather working class, getting it done, flawed—our Savior died—but not giving up.
Our Savior died: we, too, must come to that point of Decision, which point freeze-frames so much good vintage of life experience. Our experience becomes vineyard most luscious. Our experience becomes reactive, reflective response to all piecemeal assembly. No, this Decision is to follow a Grandmaster and surrender our ambitions, hopes, and pride.
Then to the day’s puzzle: what, after all, is the singular Point to recall? What is the key focal point of the day’s outlay? For what do we work?
This has no perfectly evolved utmost echelon solution, but rather calls on us to Decide: what is your vocation, O soldier? To the pundit of religion, the day’s work is received prophetically minus forethought and plan: the day’s work being somehow to uphold as Holy the energized, scurrying, making haste examples of Cruciform life. Not drifting along in “prayer” but Decisive and Purposeful, to create Stark Antinomies and Juxtapositions. To reject so much false comfort, until that point we are receiving Real Comfort from a parental hug or family embrace, such that having received we can lance forth as New Creations, already occupied, not lingering around the touch and go love shown, but diving into the Decision and the Contrast.
Then the cultural variation going from churched to unchurched can mask the depth-diving reality: that all comers are at base camp, ground zero, of the enterprise called Salvation. All need this day to Decide. And to cease to “blame” the unconverted, for that appellation alights itself upon perhaps the suffering Saint, more than on the brash or unreceptive Demon. That appellation hides that all comers need Conversion, preaching to Convict, they need a cryfest most divine, sublime, energized and Together: to be churched and unchurched… together.
Impossible to forget, we seek the eyes lit up and the strange orgiastic (Pentecostal) divinely-sourced Pride and Celebration. We seek the hushed tones around News too good to keep silent on. We murmur and we embrace, we hands remove and marvel: God is Here! Here and now! Because of the sacrifice made, the peace for the unchurched as much as for the churched. Somehow solemn decisions are meted out our way, and the loser in the equation gets increasingly uptight and “precious”, easily broken, harried and mad. This is a mystery, and it is a gift: God giving us as much evidence to go on as we can intake, because the slog is horrifyingly difficult. We need something to point to. We have it in His ability, as the pastor said, to win with Love, to lead with Love, to Be Jesus for each other.