2023-10-18 A Meditation on Flawed
“11 But as for you, O man of God, flee these things. Pursue righteousness, godliness, faith, love, steadfastness, gentleness. 12 Fight the good fight of the faith. Take hold of the eternal life to which you were called and about which you made the good confession in the presence of many witnesses. 13 I charge you in the presence of God, who gives life to all things, and of Christ Jesus, who in his testimony before Pontius Pilate made the good confession, 14 to keep the commandment unstained and free from reproach until the appearing of our Lord Jesus Christ, 15 which he will display at the proper time—he who is the blessed and only Sovereign, the King of kings and Lord of lords, 16 who alone has immortality, who dwells in unapproachable light, whom no one has ever seen or can see. To him be honor and eternal dominion. Amen.” (1 Ti 6:11–16 ESV)
We are a flawed species, ever since the original fall. It was a fall that puts into relief, contrast, every foolish thing since. Buzzing about is a storyline of the original Eve and Adam, of their offspring, and of the things they got up to, things we assess with a knowing glance, as though they are intelligible things.
They are intelligible, to see brother kill brother, to see wife seduce husband and serpent seduce wife, only properly when we simultaneously Believe: we Believe such is the actual estate of man, not some theoretical. They are intelligible properly only when we simultaneously undo the handcuffs and begin to look with some sympathy on our own sins, pride, aggression, foolish outlays, and so much more. Somehow in light of a culture sick with sin, we can begin to seek help; we can begin to dwell post-Fall, and Absolved, Loved, Murmured over with sweet nothings. For so does Jesus love us.
Therefore, to the ramparts: that we may better know our Lord and His forgiveness, let us better know our hearts and their plausible excuses. Let us be like those who individually were responsible for vouching for a beleaguered Person, Religion, and Gestalt. Our gestalt is of the importance individually of the believer, who sees lackluster interest and votes with the crowd, or who goes on a limb with their own enthused recommendation.
The logic of that scourge called Sin, is that all are vulnerable to a story told inimically to the individual, to the observer now become the subject matter. The observer is cuffed and shown dire images of his or her sins. The gentle countenance of a lover of life becomes the aghast countenance of one facing Hard Truths. Haunted houses do beckon, and all the while we try to live into some normalcy minus those circling sins and faultlines.
We fight because alternate storylines are not only plausible, but are endemic, characteristic and par for the course. There is no guarantee that someone else will do the deed for us, that the right decision will be made, but rather eons come and go; today, believer, your deeds of love, borne in Grace, may solidify centuries of future generations, or appropriate the labors of past generations into something manifest and bankable.
Today we fight because there is only so much we as image-bearers can do: we put the enterprise into motion, but learning must take place, life experience must be undergone, we pray for each other rather than spoiling each other with obstacles avoided. The higher mind meets the higher soul. The two see beauty as a possibility, a near “pinch yourself” because this is real. The crew is “out there” and when we stick to the fellowship like glue truth unfolds. Things are discovered. A wild new reality comes into focus, just beneath the surface malaise.