2024-09-05 A Meditation on Messy Encounter
“8 For God is my witness, how I yearn for you all with the affection of Christ Jesus. 9 And it is my prayer that your love may abound more and more, with knowledge and all discernment, 10 so that you may approve what is excellent, and so be pure and blameless for the day of Christ, 11 filled with the fruit of righteousness that comes through Jesus Christ, to the glory and praise of God.” (Phil 1:8-11 ESV)
A bit hefty is the spirit “out there” who wants us to question our salvation. A bit persuasive the cynic “out there” who catalogs with ill intent, just how far we’ve come and just how far we’ve to go, on the spirituality scale. A bit petulant the voice who repays gifts of insight with horror and tide-turning accusations reciprocated.
That is, our very existence is either in the column of salvation, or that of damnation. And when once we’ve heard a Jesus emoted, meted out speech, inkling of salvation history as applied to us evoked, we engage in a dynamic courtship—at His expense. We are by now Saved, yes, indeed Saved, but first let us get our childlike licks in, our striking of the body (“Hey! That hurt!”) and our lashing out in smiling reciprocity: just as you made Me feel accused, I reciprocate and wish the same faux blessing on you!
But in one direction, that being ours, our blessing is sincere, and we did not know our testimony was as it were in a china shop of things easily broken. We did not know that the church public at large, is not all “converted”, not all “group mind” around the Spirit, not all “cruciform Body” around the flesh. Yes, we weary to learn that we went “PhD” level on spiritual mysteries, when what was needful is still and always shall be, the basics. Just repetition of basic truths. And that what later comes as par for the course, is after all Learned and to many “out there” Radical. Simultaneously we yearn for, covet, embrace, and simultaneously we repay with hatred, petulance, things originating in us—let’s be honest—but that seem to come about out of their own prerogative and their own accord.
Fine day, then, for the watchtower to lift a gaze heavenward, arms held high in thanksgiving for that Fact called Peace: the peace of feng shui or whatever that means, of copacetic and elided, gliding along, getting along, proximities one to another. Our gratitude is no onerous duty, but rather it humbles us (“Low anthropology” to the intellectually-minded: we have a low posture in relation to the God Above) and preps us then more to receive. We receive more from the Master’s hand because we were primed and prepped to Hear.
By our contrition. By our thanksgiving. By our mutual reciprocity, the exact opposite—because we’ve primed ourselves in a pro-life-together mindset—of a Sartrean “Hell is other people”. Pro-life-together meaning by taking time to ourselves and repenting of all that makes us oblique and self-interested, we have now turned outward and, in fasted fashion, begin a bit to hunger for these peers near to us: more fun to pray for others than to continue in prayer for ourselves.
Probably the first takeaway of Jesus’ history is that doubts may come. One day we are living large off of promises of Scripture; the next day, we question the inspired state of Holy Scripture. And then the compromise: well, of course Scripture is a mixed bag, but we emphasize its certainty because of the utmost importance of some of its verses to carry us through.
Jesus lived and breathed. Jesus’ life was in a place quite similar to our own. Jesus’ trials were exactly like our own. And the takeaway being that this life is dignified as Worthy of His time and patience, His outlay and investment, His meek certainty regarding those promises… of the Father, of Scripture, of the Holy Spirit.