2023-03-05 A Meditation on Oneness With the Forlorn
“But he said to me, “My grace is sufficient for you, for my power is made perfect in weakness.” Therefore I will boast all the more gladly of my weaknesses, so that the power of Christ may rest upon me.” (2 Co 12:9 ESV)
There is some oneness to the ministry Christ bequeathed to us. One, we look no farther than to Him our peer and friend and husband, for that self-healing bout: the bout both with weakness and with strength, we find nowhere else to hide from nor to deny our oneness with the Lord. His Cross is our cross, His burden our burden, His infamy our infamy.
Self-healing, the Christian soldier wanders through realities weak and realities strong. Weakness comes in two varieties, the hopeful, and the despairing. We hope, and anon discover strength. We despair, and fear to be counted amongst those judged. “Oh my,” we say, “after all this: after all this, am I to be lumped with the sinners”. No: picking ourselves up, feeling anew our pluck, we know that just to be conscious and alert this hour is to be saved. It is to join with our Christ and Lord who despaired on His Cross: “My God, my God, why have you forsaken me? Why are you so far from saving me, from the words of my groaning?” (Ps 22:1; Mk 15:34). We find strength for the journey, inspiration from the Patient One, hope in this life-affirming Deity who takes us through and through dying unto the other side, a side where we shall dwell secure and together in peace with our neighbor and our friend.
His Oneness is our invitation to flourish. “All I need is one word, one solemn promise, and I can go the distance: just you watch me!”: “And he arose and ate and drank, and went in the strength of that food forty days and forty nights to Horeb, the mount of God.” (1 Ki 19:8). All we need is mono-vision, blinders that prevent wider scope of distraction, nowhere to turn but upward. When we can turn nowhere else, we become souls prepped and readied for the Gospel. We meet our bridegroom in that parable of the heavenly wedding banquet (Rev 19:9). We no longer hate His scars and wounds, as something distasteful or loathsome: we settle down in comfort and longing, today we shall make our home together.
Look at the excitement: Jesus was, like Paul, possessed of the call to go far in this life, a career Man, a plenipotentiary of some sort, no sin in following that secular (or religious, in Paul’s case) call. Right? Or would it be sin, having once seen the Promised Land, the valley of vision, to deny our own crosses and our own resurrections, our redemption at Christ’s right hand, our peculiar dwelling-place near to the forlorn and the lonesome, near to the battle-scarred and rejected, near to the passed-over and hated.
For, it is detestable for us to approach those deeply wronged or accused or hated: we revile and curl up in disgust, because of witnessing their cross, their hardship, their judgment in this life. Such as these, when all other avenues start to appear too sinful or complacent, such as these we make our Cause and our Duty, our salvation via meager good deeds and small but sincere actions, is perhaps soon. Soon we shall be wed to infamy and the world’s passing fancy-met-with passing distaste. For it isn’t just hatred we contend with, but a blase spirit and a lazy, yawning dismissal.
The soldier expects the lazy forgetful spirit, and sharpens her or his toolset of the mind for tomorrow’s battle. Sharp one hour, then expecting precisely the opposite of sharpness in a contentious sequel, the soldier is mindful to remember and recollect what platforms war is existing on, even now. Even today, there is no such thing as over-preparedness; we are wrong to think all things are good and true “out there”; look at one’s own scars! Look at the oppression of many! Look at the denying, hubristic false spirit even amidst our own ranks! See the serpent, and know much bloodshed is averted by a cadre that Believes. Much bloodshed down the line is dried out and elevated unto praise and thanksgiving: for Life, for Coexistence, for Purpose.
When all is said and done, still the soldier remains in that strange state, knowing war and all its insanities, its bouts of imaginary peacetimes met with true states of combat and oppression. So we deny some spirits that vie for our attention, and are copacetic with the sharp advance, forward march, insight and patient enamoration with Victory. We are the ones set to win. We are the ones believing that a strong genesis makes for a strong, gospel-adoring cohort (1 Ti 6:12). We have our genesis and our confession finally of Original Sin. In that confession we practically begin to walk on air, so rich does become the footsoldier and the Everyman in our midst. Each voice is capable of lifting high the Cross (Mt 18:10). Each voice is capable of bearing the neighbor’s burden. Each voice is finding not just the promised doubt and persecution, but the willing camaraderie, the believing cohort, the Time, above all else, to be those who are Ready and Willing in the face of blustery despair and forlorn sense of insignificance.