2025-03-12 A Meditation on Prophecy Fulfilled

“3 For by the grace given to me I say to everyone among you not to think of himself more highly than he ought to think, but to think with sober judgment, each according to the measure of faith that God has assigned. 4 For as in one body we have many members, and the members do not all have the same function, 5 so we, though many, are one body in Christ, and individually members one of another. 6 Having gifts that differ according to the grace given to us, let us use them: if prophecy, in proportion to our faith; 7 if service, in our serving; the one who teaches, in his teaching; 8 the one who exhorts, in his exhortation; the one who contributes, in generosity; the one who leads, with zeal; the one who does acts of mercy, with cheerfulness.” (Rom 12:3-8 ESV)

Christ with us spells Invite to get the full ticket, the grand show, the Friend made real. That is, our theology spells so much promissory stuff, but it is a certain openness, persistence, “Real People doing Real Things” that waves a more potent wand over the matter: we are Healed, by knowing the brokenness is overcome; we are Healed, by knowing the cipher is to be complete; we are Healed, by knowing the blanks are filled in.

This longing, this unrealized Capacity of Man to love Man, to accept Love, to find Calm amidst the trauma of life, all this is the special prerogative of Christ with us. What we do in worship, we revel in after pattern-matching it to some casual, rather, easy-going relationship. That doesn’t hark to the Law of expectations: the email, if we write and send it no worries, that is Grace. It is a Graceful relationship and dynamic. That we feel no insane compulsion—rather, quite sane and law-mauled compulsion—to get it just right, to bundle a myriad of apologies with a miasma of insights, and throw in some Scripture for good measure.

Christ with us is also not something we need fear our inner demons will dissuade or ruin. We do crucify Christ; we do trample on the more gentle members of our species, that is, who exhibit a gentility that All can be and do in their respective right environs. Yet loved we still are. Yet realizing: am I “logical”, sufficiently “calculating”, rightly “defensive”, strangely “mission-oriented”? God values the innate, the unplanned, the not cynical, the ways we act the part of “saint” with or without intention, with or without that—let’s be honest—crazed voice that vocalizes the frustration with utter peccadillos, or plans casually around a stark or insane possibility, or otherwise shows fruit illogical and yet close to home. We are strange and wondrously made. God moves in mysterious ways; to explain to a crowd just who and why we are joyful this day, it must invoke some dastardly environs met with Mystery: met with “you can’t make this stuff up”; met with no joke All-In mentality.

Therefore the majestic contrast: we hold fast to a Scripture and a Teaching, but in and of itself it is a placeholder and a what-if. It teaches us how it “should” work, but leaves to fate and the Holy Spirit to make this “Christ”, that “Wounded”, “Demon-possessed”, “Prophet”, and “Saint” real in our happenchance lives. Oh. So it really was a creed that puts paid to the promise; God’s checks are good, His promises Sure, His intention Yearning yet Sober: pained, He is, to the utmost… that Today isn’t always the day it might have been, but that an Insane Patience, unhuman, Divine, shall win the battle and change the tide of the war.

And we, who are we but those forgetful: this Creed; that Special Crew; that gathering for Prayer: be self-coaching, O Man! O Woman! Coach thyself into the Truth that Insane is the proximity both to sainted mercy, self-giving, peace; and Insane is the proximity to balderdash, hypocrisy, eel-like self assessments, “coming clean” turned “coming flawed”. We are, after all, sinners! And for all that we wish to sign up on that basis, instead we are asked after small talk and awkward, yet with some almost forced acceptance, call and response. Yet arriving home: all, needed something more than any of us vocalized. All, in the chitter-chatter, were being healed of a stark solo crossing, or rather, small crew crossing, husband-wife crossing, man-spouse, woman-spouse, crossing: the stark Reality of life on this terrestrial ball.

It is therefore military precision that knows and turns to its own profit, the capabilities present, and the dastardly trials present. Forgive us, O small-talking ones! Let us say One True Thing, and not ask for a penny more! By way of grafting in to the agency, into the camaraderie, into the Promise for the Ages, for the Body, for people of strange and foreign tongue, who already we Know and Revere, this friend distant or that friend long lost, being now our First Lover and Prime Mover. We allowed the hour to state its best case, then asked ourselves where that first love lay. We asked ourselves what, if anything, we could contribute to that factually Graceful inbox or exchange: no pressure, here! Peace that passeth understanding, there! Oh, that we would remember the council sent our way, and be mindful of so much gratitude, so much Lenten observance cautiously entertained, so much gratitude for one or two or three Friends sent our way.