“2 And I, when I came to you, brothers, did not come proclaiming to you the testimony of God with lofty speech or wisdom. 2 For I decided to know nothing among you except Jesus Christ and him crucified. 3 And I was with you in weakness and in fear and much trembling, 4 and my speech and my message were not in plausible words of wisdom, but in demonstration of the Spirit and of power, 5 so that your faith might not rest in the wisdom of men but in the power of God. Wisdom from the Spirit 6 Yet among the mature we do impart wisdom, although it is not a wisdom of this age or of the rulers of this age, who are doomed to pass away. 7 But we impart a secret and hidden wisdom of God, which God decreed before the ages for our glory. 8 None of the rulers of this age understood this, for if they had, they would not have crucified the Lord of glory. 9 But, as it is written, “What no eye has seen, nor ear heard, nor the heart of man imagined, what God has prepared for those who love him”— 10 these things God has revealed to us through the Spirit. For the Spirit searches everything, even the depths of God. 11 For who knows a person’s thoughts except the spirit of that person, which is in him? So also no one comprehends the thoughts of God except the Spirit of God. 12 Now we have received not the spirit of the world, but the Spirit who is from God, that we might understand the things freely given us by God. 13 And we impart this in words not taught by human wisdom but taught by the Spirit, interpreting spiritual truths to those who are spiritual. 14 The natural person does not accept the things of the Spirit of God, for they are folly to him, and he is not able to understand them because they are spiritually discerned. 15 The spiritual person judges all things, but is himself to be judged by no one. 16 “For who has understood the mind of the Lord so as to instruct him?” But we have the mind of Christ.” (1 Cor 2:1-16 ESV)
The locales of meaning, these sort and decide, judge and allot: some Action or Decision made, and—push—we are in bright skies and light of day in some new Reality. All such realities, God will love us through them, but all such realities: it is frightening to see that Judgment Day is real and no matter how hard we try, always there will be some holiest of holies off limits perhaps, or at least a fine sense come homecoming that we “coulda done better”.
Coulda appreciated more, or what: what do you want from us, we might ask. Something not just accumulated “good works”, but some elixir of Respect shown, Gratitude expressed, Submission exercised? And to mock others, less submitted, less coiffed and slotted into some Career or Servant’s Mindset: we mock but these are the ones for whom Christ died. We mock those for whom it is too magnificent the thought of a Christian stand because… because of who “their people” are, and the gestalt, the word on the street: we aren’t like “those people”, “those Christians”, those zealots.
Yet all told Everyone is called to make holy service, holy reaction to what Love and God Himself have done for them. We all, whether slotted in or wandering, are Capable of a few ticks of improvement, a few gestures forgotten, a few thank-yous and forgive-mes finally embraced. We embrace… but see, too, the hypocrisy of those in priestly garb or pewsitter garb: the illusion that all can be gentle and copacetic, meets the street-dwellers stark Reality, that all is pageantry devoid of Sincerity. All is convenience talking, but the reality: if hard-pressed, how many of those types would actually take up a Cross? Probably… probably those numbers are few and far between, because the Kindness and the Demeanor called “Christian” is only—and at times utterly misled—halfway there.
The pundit, the soldier, the one for whom it never is taken for granted, is in a viciously Actionable posture or relationship with established Truth. With established Religion. With the Call… to Confess Him as Lord… to know it shall lead to weird and wondrous persecutions. Some people, their Testimony is more hard-fought, more Amazing, more Inspiring. Each of us can be This.
Each of us can Rise Up because Christ wasn’t done in by the grave. If only some precious Word from our lips, One Word… it may be thus that a friend of ours easily realizes… not three points but simply One, that Jesus is Lord, and this… let us savor it and respect it for what it is, a Testimony and a radical Departure from the slow murder of atheism.