“6 The apostles and the elders were gathered together to consider this matter. 7 And after there had been much debate, Peter stood up and said to them, “Brothers, you know that in the early days God made a choice among you, that by my mouth the Gentiles should hear the word of the gospel and believe. 8 And God, who knows the heart, bore witness to them, by giving them the Holy Spirit just as he did to us, 9 and he made no distinction between us and them, having cleansed their hearts by faith. 10 Now, therefore, why are you putting God to the test by placing a yoke on the neck of the disciples that neither our fathers nor we have been able to bear? 11 But we believe that we will be saved through the grace of the Lord Jesus, just as they will.” 12 And all the assembly fell silent, and they listened to Barnabas and Paul as they related what signs and wonders God had done through them among the Gentiles. 13 After they finished speaking, James replied, “Brothers, listen to me. 14 Simeon has related how God first visited the Gentiles, to take from them a people for his name. 15 And with this the words of the prophets agree, just as it is written, 16  “ ‘After this I will return, and I will rebuild the tent of David that has fallen; I will rebuild its ruins, and I will restore it, 17  that the remnant of mankind may seek the Lord, and all the Gentiles who are called by my name, says the Lord, who makes these things 18 known from of old.’ 19 Therefore my judgment is that we should not trouble those of the Gentiles who turn to God, 20 but should write to them to abstain from the things polluted by idols, and from sexual immorality, and from what has been strangled, and from blood. 21 For from ancient generations Moses has had in every city those who proclaim him, for he is read every Sabbath in the synagogues.”” (Acts 15:6-21 ESV)

But one taste of sin and the people clamor for more: we each of us reckon with the desire to be obliviated or sedated under chemical or behavioral or something whatever it is, that lies minus acceptable notions of Life. Acceptable notions: that work is what it is, and that by and large “How are you today?” has standard and true responses.

But no! There is a strange macabre dance; we seek the overdrive or the sedation, we seek the sin having Once tasted it, never again to be content in our rascally frame. We are rascals, after all, because we innately seek to hide in the corners from the parent-figure, from the pastor, from acceptable Engaged life in community. We have but once Tasted of the needle or the dope, of the risky behavior or the strange ways we march into no-man’s battle zone hating or neglecting the right Care for our own likelihood of survival. 

Don’t die for nothing! Yet too, God uses our Drive to effect a better Vision, an improved Person, a way that all our sins now orchestrate a Divine Dance scarcely understood by its consummated People and Dancers. We are in trance and forgetful of all self-righteous Boast, of all realization: Today we are all things told, contributory! We are Making a difference! We are… but the music goes on, and the dance continues… O man, O woman, don’t you see your own ignorance and undeserving? Don’t you see each Day is a loan on extension, a promise that should be by now Broken. But God has Promised! And what? To Noah, never again to flood the earth! To Abraham, to make him the father of nations! To Christ… this One… this favored Child… to this One sadly that all peoples—yes—will put their faith in Him, but at what Cost? The cost of the Cross. The cost of “for real, man!” lonely stark Time to Decide. I didn’t know it would all… would all just dissipate like that! I was healing and miracle-working and rightly deserved my life, only suddenly here it is, the Cross!

And we have Him as a forebearer of said Cross; what role model did He have? And somehow, that perverse Trek to Cruciform life… it was no longer a maniacal or socially unacceptable or asocial Deed. It was no longer a crux or perversion of Man’s Purpose here on earth. Somehow God’s own Son battled all the pride or boast of that Decision because… after all, it is a needle times a hundred, a socially abnormal Behavior times ten, a wild-eyed Trip to a Tomorrow only scarcely believed upon, doubted upon, neglected to Curate upon. We must Curate our hope, lest the addiction take its place.