2023-08-06 A Meditation on Something Solemn in the Air
“26 Likewise the Spirit helps us in our weakness. For we do not know what to pray for as we ought, but the Spirit himself intercedes for us with groanings too deep for words. 27 And he who searches hearts knows what is the mind of the Spirit, because the Spirit intercedes for the saints according to the will of God. 28 And we know that for those who love God all things work together for good, for those who are called according to his purpose. 29 For those whom he foreknew he also predestined to be conformed to the image of his Son, in order that he might be the firstborn among many brothers. 30 And those whom he predestined he also called, and those whom he called he also justified, and those whom he justified he also glorified.” (Ro 8:26–30 ESV)
To thrive, or to languish: baby-steps or giant leaps, the believer opens up to trials in equal measure to their faith. Sometimes we sense the buzz in the air of the faith, and sometimes some ill spirit is taking its first steps, to muddle and confuse, to posit a false hearth, all this in no way detracting from said spirit’s final state, murderous, hateful, degenerate, warring, and judgmental. Tropes of hatred are beneath the surface. Ideologies of false tenacity seem to be our nervously imagined bedrock. That is, to the evolutionary biologist, nothing is spiraling upwards to a certain perfection. Evolution of ideas and evolution of DNA: both can take wild detours, ten thousand or a million years for the sake of one lunge or radical bravery cut down, one prophecy unheard, one friend not given due time and appreciation. The unsentient greenery may in fact be a future Adam’s or Christ’s lineage. Yet such cynical thinking is not our Gospel. Our Gospel is in warm climes for the believer in and through the societal storm and headwind. We somehow believe that the best wealth is curated by a spirit of giving away. It is monitored by a spirit of simpler poverties of dress or of hearty boast: when we boast, it is in the Lord.
Therefore this day we may be poking our head out of a compromised scenario, yet one where the voice of Jesus is somehow more heard and more central, because God knows this: that we need succor and nurture. We boast that, no, we are strong enough in ourselves, but He has a nursery plan for us, nursemaids and nurse-manservants. He compliments us for our first steps of faith by the pleasant murmur of the congregation, but also is diligent always to extend a hand of mercy, for this newfound faith is ours to rediscover and reclaim.
All man’s endeavors are laden with sin. All he ventures upon is with impure motive. All his handling even of the Gospel, is tainted by the cage-fighter’s (Adam’s; Eve’s) pluck: when our best bet is to go easy on the situation, to trust our warm feelings for Christ shall return in time and that with great explanatory insight, is also counter-acted by sinful man’s sense of urgency: must speak up; must make a fuss; must make a scene. So both are true, that even our evangelism is a channel for our sin (don’t put a Jesus bumper sticker on your car, some say, lest you be seen cutting someone off in traffic!). Something meek is called for, even as we are afforded a sanctuary in the Name. In the Name we evoke so much accumulated safe-zone and patient listening. God listens to us. God also asks us to testify in strange and wonderful ways, making of us a meek and at times embarrassed soldier, though the embarrassment is better understood to be bravery, forward position, ample posture for the fight. So we check ourselves a bit, and understand that our worst taste buds, when tickled, should prompt patience in and through our neighbors’ misguided walk, and cause us to take their burdens upon our own shoulders, confident in the Name, but not so resolved and possessed of any better solution than that Christ loves us, and we are to love one another.
Even when the air is thick with an atheism. Even when we say, “Hey, not fair, what is this?” to a spirit cutting us down. Recall that same astonishment accompanies our own sins: thank God this day we haven’t done worse to ourselves and by the way of our friends.