2024-05-01 A Meditation on Reminders

“18 Therefore, as one trespass led to condemnation for all men, so one act of righteousness leads to justification and life for all men. 19 For as by the one man’s disobedience the many were made sinners, so by the one man’s obedience the many will be made righteous. 20 Now the law came in to increase the trespass, but where sin increased, grace abounded all the more, 21 so that, as sin reigned in death, grace also might reign through righteousness leading to eternal life through Jesus Christ our Lord.” (Rom 5:18-21 ESV)

The Cross is a bit of a foretaste to remind us: though all hope is ours; though all assurance is ours; though the very stars sing of the blessed estate that is ours, we are going a route that by all natural instinct we shy away from. We cannot fathom, that though “saved”, we are going to have long nights of the soul; though “saved”, we are going to be tested; though “saved”, we are going to be pained, tried, overwhelmed, and maddened with the pain that is paramount.

The soldier, that is, prepares him or herself with the news that sin increases in lockstep to Grace increasing in our lives. That is, sin finds a way to invent new forums, vistas of faulty thought; the soul is no blithe comfortable easy prayer-walk, but is cantankerous and persistent, ambitious and focused: please, let us avoid a little bit more of our Cross. Please, let us bring all concerns in prayer to Christ Jesus. Please, let us be not the sanguine blessed but rather the flawed miracle worker. We are flawed. We have sins a pessimist would call “endemic”, “ruinous”, “obvious”. But to us, the chief of sinners (1 Tit 1:15), we are only jumping and letting all know how glad happily we today do accept Christ Jesus’ forgiveness, our Friend’s Peace.

For the night was long. The solemn lightless season that overwhelmed our shadowy visage, our night in the trenches, our spell in the warming group hug or nearness to our fellow and gal, all these things were to remind us, that salvation belongs not to us but to Another. Salvation is the shy willing response of a God who knows the soldier’s perennial cross, that is, knows the Cross of any sincere effort to get honestly right with the Father. Who knows the absolute tyranny of suggestion and of prejudice: none of us is rightly “Good” by our own measure of effort; all of us cringe and wilt under the bright light of the day season, if that light is dismissive, prejudiced, or expects less from us.

Expects that we will fail. Expects, or rather simply dislikes us. Expects that we too are as hardheaded as whomsoever is associated with our modest estate. Estates they are fascinating, because their custodian labors to prove whose side he or she is on: persecutor? Or executor? Or lead attorney? Or defense of the accused? Some plain managerial skill is called for, some notion of moving past the “caught in headlights” escalation already done and already in the books. The executor is Christ; the estate is a class-bridging, race-bridging, religion-bridging solemn attestation: Good People. These are Good People. These have the narrow way, the maze-like youth and patient parental tutelage, unto a Forgiveness that unlocks, that like a man or child, woman, etc. on a journey, seeks the locket for the skeleton key, which locket in imitation of a little lord Fauntleroy puts to rest all furtive scrambling, teaches to trust fall, to take the leap, to have faith in a loving parental unit present and attentive, willing to give all good gifts to the daughter or to the son. It truly is a scene out of a distant prophetic sign, sigh, and boost: we are boosted, and need to be boosted a second time; and a third time; and ad infinitum, because the tradition is too murderous, too afflicting, too hurtful.

The soldier therefore has a vision of some extremities, a little too particular and emphatic for polite discussion: that God is for us, and as such that we will be the chief of sinners for a season; that God is for us, and that we need untold, forgiving and second-chance-granting patience, untold utter Hope in what we will attain unto, the first attainment being the first legs of the inheritance, the simple signs that, no, there is a trusted parental evidence of existence. There is some end to the torment, and beginning of life together.