2023-11-09 A Meditation on Salvation From Outside Ourselves

“2 And you were dead in the trespasses and sins 2 in which you once walked, following the course of this world, following the prince of the power of the air, the spirit that is now at work in the sons of disobedience— 3 among whom we all once lived in the passions of our flesh, carrying out the desires of the body and the mind, and were by nature children of wrath, like the rest of mankind. 4 But God, being rich in mercy, because of the great love with which he loved us, 5 even when we were dead in our trespasses, made us alive together with Christ—by grace you have been saved— 6 and raised us up with him and seated us with him in the heavenly places in Christ Jesus, 7 so that in the coming ages he might show the immeasurable riches of his grace in kindness toward us in Christ Jesus. 8 For by grace you have been saved through faith. And this is not your own doing; it is the gift of God, 9 not a result of works, so that no one may boast. 10 For we are his workmanship, created in Christ Jesus for good works, which God prepared beforehand, that we should walk in them.” (Eph 2:1–10 ESV)

Faith attempts to suggest sublimely, to coach amidst war, to reconcile amidst strife. That is, in what matters—our self-perception, our ability to walk the straight and narrow, our emergence as souls purified—we have no control nor intentionality. Our intentions bring about the reverse. Our fast or sense of consecration—being set apart—are valuable only in their breakage, the all-in beloved giftedness of any time we dare share our momentary peace with other souls. This was in violation of our fast, our Law write out, our distinctions: between the genders, between heathenous companionship, between parading about rather than giving ourselves to the worship community and church life as our sole outlet, and our absence of things that overwhelm and tempt.

That is, we eat precisely in counterpoint to the decision to fast. We scramble and scamper in self-serving ways, in absence of those unspoken qualities that made us useful and relevant. We were relevant because of major investment, the parenting and the teaching that raised us. So we turn to a religion intended for our meeker hour. Muslim or Jew, Christian or Pagan, etc. or etc. we dare look into, make inquiry surrounding, the humbling hour of our life. That in such an hour we were preserved from greater sins. That in such an hour we found that radical faith claim: that we were unable to contribute to our own salvation; that God intervened where we were decrepit; that if today we shine, if today we flourish, if today we moralize and tutor in good will, that is all a freely-given gift from the Most High.

Wait. War is being waged and we the soldier want to sign up. We want to do all good things by way of personal self-giving contribution. Yet that will to sign up, initially comes not from internal prerogative, but from a walk that is in unknowing tandem with the walk of Christ. He signed up. He wrestled inner demons seen in clarion light, due to His peace and quality of life He saw the fears that still were in residence in the heart. He also was innocent to so much of the evil of common Man, yet knew enough of the Father’s uncritical love that He could critique the disciples for their vain posturing or mourn that some would deny Him.

War is waged in the Name that some cohort carries, the Banner of Love, we never forgetting it is God’s free decision and gift to vouchsafe us unto the victory. A victory wherein we shall learn something about ourselves, about life, about those with whom we fight, from the fight. From the encounter. From the maddening realization, hey, if we have confidence in ourselves and in our pluck, so too do they. Thus the belief in a Higher Power who cares about the testimony, Jesus losing by worldly standards in His disgraceful exit upon the maligned Cross of simple criminals. But in that loss an invite to His disciples and followers to see Him resurrected and triumphant. Because the Lord on High is stage-managing. Because the Lord on High is qualifying each of us, through undeserved plain Love. Through Peace where we were angst-driven or peculiarly worried. So we allow for the Spirit to make us those youthful in knowledge of sin, and mature in knowledge of Grace. Those foibles that creep in later, those good routines finally broken, all this then allows for Grace to spell a New Day, wherein we resume that good and parented, that loved and patiently taught, sense of our day and of our soul and of our service.