“7 Therefore, as the Holy Spirit says, “Today, if you hear his voice, 8 do not harden your hearts as in the rebellion, on the day of testing in the wilderness, 9 where your fathers put me to the test and saw my works for forty years. 10 Therefore I was provoked with that generation, and said, ‘They always go astray in their heart; they have not known my ways.’ 11 As I swore in my wrath, ‘They shall not enter my rest.’ ” 12 Take care, brothers, lest there be in any of you an evil, unbelieving heart, leading you to fall away from the living God. 13 But exhort one another every day, as long as it is called “today,” that none of you may be hardened by the deceitfulness of sin. 14 For we have come to share in Christ, if indeed we hold our original confidence firm to the end. 15 As it is said, “Today, if you hear his voice, do not harden your hearts as in the rebellion.” 16 For who were those who heard and yet rebelled? Was it not all those who left Egypt led by Moses? 17 And with whom was he provoked for forty years? Was it not with those who sinned, whose bodies fell in the wilderness? 18 And to whom did he swear that they would not enter his rest, but to those who were disobedient? 19 So we see that they were unable to enter because of unbelief.” (Heb 3:7-19 ESV)
How’d you find yourself here? The plain nurture aspect of a church life, the heightened sense of Belonging and Thriving under the Cross… this is a warmth not to be lightly dismissed. But also it comes with ghost stories, with afraid hours and doubting moments. We have hopefully learned from our teacher’s knee, from life as a babe to life as a young whippersnapper to life as a staid adult, that we are called to a self-reliance—that is, a Cross-reliance—in a world not doling out too many hugs.
In a world where we doubt our own profligacy or merit, but are enlivened and cheered simply for the fact someone takes the time to critique. Even if we come off negatively measured, that someone Cared. And then to return: “Pa, ma, I got this!” to the age-old Gospel truths… this is not ever a given; our profligacy or canon of works is uniquely ours and in some things, only we can effect the change, make the deed, do the homework.
How we found ourselves here, it was a sweeter soul’s Caring words, a lifeline to those who Mourn and a hope spell unto those who Rise Up anew: post dying, post Cross, post all the things that discourage and point us away from Christ’s insistent, but reluctantly received, Passion.
See how hard He works! To labor on our behalf, and pick up the slack when we go blank, go absent, go reluctant. He should be rewarded at the halfway point of His ministry, but instead we go coy and ask for More passion, More affection, More self-derived strength. Who is this strong? If not us, then our Christ!
See, too, that the sensitive One, the anxiety-ridden one, the one unvocal about her or his Faith, is wrestling a mighty fine Gameday service unto others: because of no pat answers, no clever theologies, no untested proclamations. His, her, proclamation is this: that we lived in the world with holy simplicity, and that we sought only to Honor the Dying One. Whose life… a life some scarcely know… but a life to others Precious and All Things: together we celebrate this life, trying not too much to Mourn a loss, but to celebrate a Life. And see as the spirits pass into the next world, safely we hope, curated, blessed in said Journey.
Because all life is Existentially-wrought, we are what age we are Always and Immediately and Certainly: aging is not something abstract to try and accommodate the thought of, to ascertain the meaning of, to tolerate the fright of. We are Here. We are what we are. Today, is eternity and our gladsome Cheer will survive even on that hour when we are laying prone and close to death. We are soldiers, after all, and the Care of an elder brother, sister, mother, father, teacher, coach, these things spell fits of sobbing, but also fits of Coping, Acting, simply Doing Things. We Do… because He Did… He loved us, and we saw through to His dying day, that His love was going to work the slave labor of unthanked Passion. The abuse of the slave labor. The hate of the people at large. The differing Religion or Cultural background notwithstanding, each of us has this Beacon in our life… of a Judaism or Hindu, of a Moslem or a Buddhist, of a Christian or a Free-Thinker. So we can go plainly forward knowing someone silently, secretly, passionately, Invested in us, by the Grace of the Father found in the Son. And this is a Mystery.