2023-02-24 A Meditation on Matching Depravity With Joy
“for all have sinned and fall short of the glory of God,” (Ro 3:23 ESV)
There is something unattainable in weathering any storm. That is, our shield is found on the other side of a personal type of defeat. Realizing our own proclivity to say “my way or the highway!”; realizing the relationship that leaves us gaping, muttering to ourself even, or close to it; there is a patient brand of discipleship our Lord performs, as He walks us down a path that is less fair-weather than we typically assume. We then walk in knowledge of a bitter foe, equal in might and determination. We walk in knowledge of the power of sin, to act up and take us to astonishing panic or self-hatred or simply fumbling the ball. We fumble, and mutter our panic and fear of judgment, or let’s be honest, just our fear of no longer being wanted. Of being unloved.
The Christian’s shield then is tandem to her or his joy, the celebration of a friendship, the burgeoning knowledge of living in godly company and family. In this shield is the fruit of a one-step-further type of deduction: we started with the “I’m sorry…” and, magically, that actually made things better. Even though the person saying sorry was still prone to sin. Even though it was only words. It is the sentiment that counts. The sentiment earns us the mutually-giving relationship. The sentiment helps us to face those waking panic attacks when judgment seems to be divorcing us from jolly reality, from typical reality, from the realm in which we work and labor and think and love.
Therefore we turn each defeat into a morsel of victory. We put aside easy dismissals and loveless denial, we put aside affectionless humor, trying to prove ourselves logical and self-contained: No! Rather let us note a heart that hurts for those who are blaming us or pointing to their own hurt or fear. Let us be unashamed to be the greater hand reaching out, not to hurt but to gesture and indicate that there is safety amidst the scary storm. Let us never again try to make our penitence “once and for all”, as though we can as a perfectionist pick up and say, “I covered all my bases… now I’m all sin-free from here on out!”
Instead, we are accustomed to eating humble pie, but joyous for this fact that we again can be like a prodigal, again can heal of that self-mutilating hatred or denial of what makes us tick, can sympathize with the one who is tempted, quick to point out all suffer from trials and temptations. That is what makes us human. That is what makes us worthy of Jesus’ discipleship.
Therefore we have somehow moved post legal, not just in the theological sense of God’s “Law”, but also in the deductive reliance on some attainable litany or causal reasoning or logical framework. Then we become redeemed legalists; our logical nature is re-gifted to us, post conversion. Call it Grace. For “Grace” is partner to “Law”.
Our sacrament consists of some “Come to Jesus” moment prior to fixing ourselves up, prior to addressing the insanity or lunacy that one moment we are all “Good morning!” and “Let’s do this!” and the next we are strung out, some of us on drugs, some on inner hatred and pain, some on other senseless decisions. Has not God given us enough “drug” and “drink” and “satiety” minus the sin, minus the proclivity to lust, minus the self-mutilation and spiritual deadend, destruction, ruin? Weren’t we A-Okay in the morning greeting? Where did all this come from?
We ruin ourselves. We are only then post-legal because we for once dare to believe something we really do need: we need to know we are loved and do belong. All our trials come to point this fact out, that God is for us, that we are rearranged unto salvation this morn alone, not with a backlog of things to prove and fast ourselves beyond. We indulged too much, but God will not wait for us to have meager meal the next time around: He has already sent His Son, He has already forgiven us. So, we can seek a Gospel church that is post-legalistic, that can laughingly say, “Who doesn’t struggle with x-y-or-z?” That can make and license each comer to pronounce acceptance, absolution, because the alternate reality is stark and a no-man’s land.