A Meditation on God’s People

2023-04-27 A Meditation on God’s People

“Blessed be the God and Father of our Lord Jesus Christ! According to his great mercy, he has caused us to be born again to a living hope through the resurrection of Jesus Christ from the dead, to an inheritance that is imperishable, undefiled, and unfading, kept in heaven for you, who by God’s power are being guarded through faith for a salvation ready to be revealed in the last time. In this you rejoice, though now for a little while, if necessary, you have been grieved by various trials, so that the tested genuineness of your faith—more precious than gold that perishes though it is tested by fire—may be found to result in praise and glory and honor at the revelation of Jesus Christ. Though you have not seen him, you love him. Though you do not now see him, you believe in him and rejoice with joy that is inexpressible and filled with glory, obtaining the outcome of your faith, the salvation of your souls.” (1 Pe 1:3–9 ESV)

The people of the Lord stand ready to witness unexpected goodness. Rampant care, overwhelming justice, iconoclast-crashing kindness. All of us take a moment of reverie. All of us realize our own march unto bondage is coming to an end. We are all of us astonished by the observed fact that didn’t quite match up with our own private economics.

We were seeing things too matter-of-factly. We were trying to own and control, thoughts, plans, responses to a hell-raising world. We were cagey and full of fuss. Yet the Lord did a kind deed. He banked on a generous take in regards to this our peer. He ignored the warmongering and the cynicism.

He didn’t own the solution, except insofar as that solution must be recognized by faith. It is a solution that will not guarantee allegiance or fruit. It is a solution simply and to us maddeningly kind, open, gentle, non-accusatory, trusting, hope-filled, peace-making, simple. It is the little boost given to a man or woman wherein their estate is recognized, their brand put up in lights, their pain humorously alleviated. All this astonishes us the observer, for we naturally assume much less by way of our reliance on magnanimity. We assume much less as far as our trust fall. Yes, the Lord has taken trust fall upon trust fall with His children. He values our agency above so much else, so that we come to that place of goodness not coddled nor patronized, but with our free choice intact. And that is a mighty surprise for us to realize. That is us recognizing His patience, for in fact there are things He long desired for us but that He would not impose upon us, except that He await our repentance of wrong-headedness.

In that repentance is that simultaneous submission-met-with newfound agency. We can own our own petty and addicted and habitual selves, gaining agency, gaining authority, gaining Created recognition, personal recognisance, up-built unto a future as Child of the God and Father of lights.

Therefore we are wonks or insiders around a full-bodied Doctrine, not simply bandying about the Good Name of our God and Father, but about the business of what He has delegated to us: a trust rooted in Cruciform reality. Another break-out from our own patterns, wherein we are astonished and surprised at a message a newcomer heard before the old guard, before the old standbys, the stalwart congregants.

This newcomer heard the message of finding our future life together in finding our personal experience with the Cross. We became manic or boastful in a good sense, around ways we were utterly and ruinously tried. Around our stigmas or the horrifying flaws in our upbringing. We heard the calm and tried voice testifying to something ethereal, some Resurrection spirit around admittedly horrendous trials. We were discomfited, until we realized this Fruit and this Locale is ours as well to own.