“50 I tell you this, brothers: flesh and blood cannot inherit the kingdom of God, nor does the perishable inherit the imperishable. 51 Behold! I tell you a mystery. We shall not all sleep, but we shall all be changed, 52 in a moment, in the twinkling of an eye, at the last trumpet. For the trumpet will sound, and the dead will be raised imperishable, and we shall be changed. 53 For this perishable body must put on the imperishable, and this mortal body must put on immortality. 54 When the perishable puts on the imperishable, and the mortal puts on immortality, then shall come to pass the saying that is written: “Death is swallowed up in victory.” 55 “O death, where is your victory? O death, where is your sting?” 56 The sting of death is sin, and the power of sin is the law. 57 But thanks be to God, who gives us the victory through our Lord Jesus Christ. 58 Therefore, my beloved brothers, be steadfast, immovable, always abounding in the work of the Lord, knowing that in the Lord your labor is not in vain.” (1 Cor 15:50-58 ESV)
The “On” mentality steps back to reflect: Education, self-discovery, revelation, these things could in some distant world, spell entirely new Phases of life on earth, and yet we aim for a fulcrum, a positive mindset, a satisfaction, wherein All Life is already revealed to us, and we are Ready and Able, not to pine or ponder what distant reaches might still be available to discover, but mark life as it stands Today as All-Sufficient.
“On” mentalism makes hay while the sun shines, around doing our level-best to Assess and Judge, something we all learn especially to do as Christians via facing our own eventual Judgment. We scamper every which way to get away from any need to Judge our fellow man, only to be ordained and honored, lauded and Set Up in diametric opposition to our evasiveness, in said Judgment seat: we as soldiers must make spot judgments. We must make life-or-death decisions. And the Cipher is All-Sufficient, namely the Mystery of Christ on Earth, not to covet longer life but rather to go feng-shui all things in light of Mystery and Miracle because death has been swallowed up in life, in Resurrection.
He has completed the mystery, making for a strange lightness of being even around our uncomfortable posture of judging and making war-time executive decisions. His Mystery happily gives us the Fattened Calves, the Fat Years, of righteous Cause, of Purpose Divine, of gladsome tide that has left us on the Winning and Righteous Side. But to the leaner years, also His gospel is ready and willing: so often the right-minded saints in the land, are oppressed and hindered, gossip preceding them or accidents Characterizing them as if Eternally, with no end to the onslaught of Judgment.
To the ramparts, then! With the gladsome News of a miracle already underway, the miracle of Christ earnestly judging our Cause Right, and earnestly giving us notwithstanding the boredom of servanthood (“Just sit around and let God tell us what to do… As If! We race to the rebel spirit to evade such Boredom!”) God gives us Ownership in His righteous cause. We own, frighteningly thoroughly, because it is Ownership of Massive Impact and Influence at times. Much too great for us, so we beg off and back down from the rebel spirit, and say: all Excitement, all Delight, all un-Jaundiced Outlay, is now found in His Mission, His riskiness, His Servant-Mindedness. We Serve, and in so doing we are alit with Passionate Intensity.
Hear this, then Today while it is still Day, that already Passion has had her day and Life Eternal has Forgiven and Assessed us in the Right, even as we make wartime Decisions and Judgments. Passion has erased the ultimate duty of Death for the Cause, replacing it with Resurrection and some bizarre affinity Christians have for one another. Christians who find themselves in simple ways Informed and Carried Along by what is written, what is preached, what is Availing Itself: our own Passionate walk to the Cross, our own Belief in Tomorrow-Land, strange Peace pervading and a horizon untainted by War: because this War was already and soon Won.