2025-01-25 A Meditation on Law and Gospel

“10 I, Paul, myself entreat you, by the meekness and gentleness of Christ—I who am humble when face to face with you, but bold toward you when I am away!— 2 I beg of you that when I am present I may not have to show boldness with such confidence as I count on showing against some who suspect us of walking according to the flesh. 3 For though we walk in the flesh, we are not waging war according to the flesh. 4 For the weapons of our warfare are not of the flesh but have divine power to destroy strongholds. 5 We destroy arguments and every lofty opinion raised against the knowledge of God, and take every thought captive to obey Christ, 6 being ready to punish every disobedience, when your obedience is complete.” (2 Cor 10:1-6 ESV)

Formed into a Calling, each and every one of us has some tutelage or training around our relationship to Law. It is a go-to for some. It can feel long absent to others. Because we have deduced a radical, non sequitur of a Reality: that to preach Grace is to honor and uphold the Law.

Christian Law. The stickler, the “good Jew”, the principled ones: these unapologetically assess and react, no “gotcha” but rather plain unadulterated Love of a disciplined kind. To look on someone, however, do we see faults or do we see Mercy? Do we make litany of all their probable sins, or do we strangely Embody legality and morality, God-given ten of the commandments sublime, Scripture and Principles all told enacted, yet all this via a mournful walk to His Cross? Christ went to the Cross because He came not to obviate, not to pain, not to dump insinuation or personal trauma upon personal trauma upon others, but to “Uphold the Law” (Matt 5:17). And for any trauma survivor, any witness to War, any habitual addict or risky-proposition-taking person, we plead for that youthful Innocence. To be free of the stigma. To be free of the pained association. To know our worst sins are those not so much “against church”, “contrary to this-and-such”, but rather the painful memories, the awkward moments, the failed interactions, the awful recollections. How could we? Would that we had a do-over!

Subtle Agents of the Cross, we are embedded as Legalists all of us, deciding when to nod along to the status quo, the group mind, the standard fare, and when to “go rogue”, forgiving an intruder, blessing with some oxygen word of Hope the failed one. This power is ours to flex, our sublime and risque personal soulful expose. We can make love to an interlocutor in any number of ways, but the startling Fact is that awkwardness, innocence, accidental avoidance, coincidentally impeded, we lunge and minister on a Spiritual Plane. The more virginal for the laughter and “what-if” momentary scene enacted, posited, “felt”, as deeply as a kiss or simple embrace.

All being a parable, we are inducted into a Certain Innocence, a forgotten era of malfeasance, no prudes but Optimists, that our Crusade most subtle, Secret, Rebellious, is in the Name of Light amidst despair, amidst darkness, a shade of Pleasant life post-”what I used to do”. The Law is Inspired! The Law gives an advantage to the obedient! The Law knows a thing or two about pain, about feeling cheated or adulteries or break-ups! Better you had gone the safe and Legal Route (in the Church sense)!

Only see the finest Agents of Grace in compromised scenarios, all-in at the party spirit vibe and mesmer. It was hard-core, after all. It was Immediate Mercy for the crazed half-drunken text the night before or the bleary-eyed Morning After. We will spend years reflecting in feigned simpler guile, the mistakes made… but sometimes it is a fight, a rebuke or shouting match, when finally we Reveal Recompense, Mercy, God’s recompense as far as, “Son, daughter, you are forgiven”.

The personal mission is to, at the last, be in the camp, the musical chairs game won, of Grace. As a lunge. As a dying Plea. As a breath of life to a Dying world. Remember how “plausible” is your malfeasance! Give them no brook! But also remember for all our chains, handcuffs spiritual, and mistakes, God has shown us Mercy on a plane more true to who we are, flaws and all. God has shown us that pleasant drink of both-and, Law and Gospel, the urgent siren going by that says, “Lord have mercy”. The co-religionist who we acknowledge and bless is fighting a spiritual war. The atheist whose gods fail in the end. The dire straits wherein Law began a litany, a diatribe, a shocked sense of awe at Man’s terror and Man’s tender caress, flowering intricate web. We were oblong and awkward, so as not to tread on amputated danger zones. Of our own persona, learning to love and bless those of differing sins than our own. And we awoke remade, “in the red”, “in the go-zone”, clean and put together, the better for the last night’s headache. We observed some fast, or we didn’t. We embraced some Law (Christian, who-knows-what-religion’s) and found simple yearning: after Peace, after Mercy, after a righteous and at times Fun dynamic, wherein no smarter than our peers we are nonetheless able to be of service. To the hasty and brief time on earth. To the lawman’s concern, which concern has only proved Law goes relentlessly and unceasingly unto a dying end. An obsession. A never-enough. And we embrace, we see peace and righteousness kiss each other (Psalm 85:10), we long for and Believe in and sally forth Boldly into the morrow.