“6 Brothers, if anyone is caught in any transgression, you who are spiritual should restore him in a spirit of gentleness. Keep watch on yourself, lest you too be tempted. 2 Bear one another’s burdens, and so fulfill the law of Christ. 3 For if anyone thinks he is something, when he is nothing, he deceives himself. 4 But let each one test his own work, and then his reason to boast will be in himself alone and not in his neighbor. 5 For each will have to bear his own load. 6 Let the one who is taught the word share all good things with the one who teaches. 7 Do not be deceived: God is not mocked, for whatever one sows, that will he also reap. 8 For the one who sows to his own flesh will from the flesh reap corruption, but the one who sows to the Spirit will from the Spirit reap eternal life. 9 And let us not grow weary of doing good, for in due season we will reap, if we do not give up. 10 So then, as we have opportunity, let us do good to everyone, and especially to those who are of the household of faith.” (Gal 6:1-10 ESV)

Learning on the fly, a state of contention surfaces as soon as we walk the path of discipleship. Backlogged, observational, there are all the ways we observe in ourselves sin, and how we get frustrated with our own constant need of remedial work. Always failing. Always no different from our unchurched friends. Always needful of some Christian time to catch up and for once feel rather pristine.

The state of contention becomes the new norm: it is no man nor woman we fight with, but ourselves: we fight over the Doctrine and for the right to announce rather baldly, brandishing nothing but our Word, that Today we accept Christ for us, Christ’s service to our human need.

It alights upon a rather precious and beloved Creed, that creed as “sensed”, as “felt”, as “experienced”, of a Christ modern and with us, with us in the trenches of “not that dream again!” In the trenches of “I worry!”. In the trenches of “I’ll need to catch up on my discipleship… yet again!”.

We “feel”, we “experience”, this modern and urgent Christ for His people, One who sees us resent others for the bad reminders they bring about, yet who is Already forgiving us for the sake of the War: be sincere, O Christian soldier, that  it is all for real, nothing of your imagination, but for real, that the War is already underfoot, and no contention between insert-your-favorite-enemy-here, but contention between His Righteousness for our penury. He wants us forgiven, not pristine, not fixed up first, but already Forgiven and accepting that God don’t make no junk: we can be useful though impure. We can be collegiate though harboring grudges. We can be dutiful though at times selfish.

It is a sense or fashion, a flavor or impulse, this Christ for His people. And in the sacrificial lamb’s Blood, in our washing of ourselves in that Blood, it suits us to go large and go bold, to think through what sinful thoughts occur, not hasty, not prudishly rejecting them outright until having seen they amount to nothing, we gently move on. We cannot claim to have the willpower to reject anything outright, at least, if past evidence is any judge. We claim purity only to be mocked by a dream. We claim principle only to be mocked by it not sufficing to keep the calm. We claim holiness only to be mocked by the rat race and no time to fuss ‘round here because “I am busy after all”.

The state of contention is the paradox of Christ’s brand of Peace. Therefore we urgently assert Peace with those would-be enemies, because Together—in spirit if not in fact—it is all too Urgent. All too immediate and all too for real. The heathen are closing in on the faithful. The church is in dire need of an existential Decision to be made. Ruin is beckoning and calling from all quarters. And if we can see this much… think of all the hardship we cannot see.

Zechariah was moved to silence by the experience of all God was doing. His wife now lay with child from the Holy Spirit. We too know that to be licensed to speak… this is no self-flattery but rather a cautious walk that we too might be Zechariah-like. Some grandeur of the Holy One, this has the power to inspire silence as much as inspire words. We sense this grandeur in that contention between Sin and Forgiveness, that Taste for something special from the Godhead, that modern Christ, Christ for us, Christ with us, Christ beside us. Who is known by His compromised people, today rising up New Creatures, today accepting the free gift.