2024-04-05 A Meditation on Sincerity

“5 Now concerning the times and the seasons, brothers, you have no need to have anything written to you. 2 For you yourselves are fully aware that the day of the Lord will come like a thief in the night. 3 While people are saying, “There is peace and security,” then sudden destruction will come upon them as labor pains come upon a pregnant woman, and they will not escape. 4 But you are not in darkness, brothers, for that day to surprise you like a thief. 5 For you are all children of light, children of the day. We are not of the night or of the darkness. 6 So then let us not sleep, as others do, but let us keep awake and be sober. 7 For those who sleep, sleep at night, and those who get drunk, are drunk at night. 8 But since we belong to the day, let us be sober, having put on the breastplate of faith and love, and for a helmet the hope of salvation. 9 For God has not destined us for wrath, but to obtain salvation through our Lord Jesus Christ, 10 who died for us so that whether we are awake or asleep we might live with him. 11 Therefore encourage one another and build one another up, just as you are doing.” (1 Th 5:1-11 ESV)

Sincerity: the soldier’s absolute methodology, means of breaking free in peaceful certainty; the walls crashing down on all sides around not a declaration of war but a sincere appeal to the Cross of Christ. War will take care of itself. Principled opposition will take care of itself. The soldier’s toolkit is banked on, rooted in, a genuine Calling, license, absolution: at no time, particularly when war is on the docket, are we entirely innocent to the mind of the cynic. But in Christ we know the deeper logic wherein this cadre is Blessed; that cohort is Inspired; this team is Set Apart. We know that the “good fight”—for, all at times have an appetite for a good fight—begins in an innocent-as-doves, sincere, and patient humility. War will take care of itself. That we can mourn over; that we can postpone as much as humanly possible; that we can simply query ourselves over: is it a righteous one? Is it a good fight? Is it calling us, beckoning to the soldier in each of us, to Believe God Himself put His own Son on the line in order that we might be absolved for the warmongering and lazy frustration with peace?

We ante up. We fight on. We know His innocence as He went to the personal Cross rather than to belligerent opposition. We know His adamant identification as “Christian”, Christ the first Christian and preeminent Soldier of the Cross. We know this identity only suits us in absolute submission unto its humbling Power, unto its Rightful Place in the person who is Peace and Believing, unto its Rightful Place as absolved and sheared free of any and all Blame. This gauntlet we hold sacred. This premise we salute. This duty we rise to. This mess we Simplify, allow Christ to determine, to delineate and to Show Forth excessive Peace-loving gesture and Cruciform Reality.