2022-12-24 A Meditation on the Crowds

“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 8:30 ESV)

A paradox of life is that our intrepid faith is, though vast strides ahead of where we once dwelt, still in service to the least and the lost. We are serving with an eye for the latecomer, the new convert, the vast society out there who did not go along with the trip that we took to get to church. So the vast strides take us well beyond the stereotypes that once described to us what faith consisted of. The vast strides are the loving gaze of a Savior who allows for us to be what we are: in need, sinners, maligned, hurt by our own disputes with others. And this Savior makes us worthy via His love: if He loves someone, then that someone is indeed in a blessed estate.

For to be loved heals and creates positivity towards a person. That is, one would think that a person is respected because of their good deeds or qualities of person. But in fact, we honor someone whom the Lord loves. Whom He loves without cause or reason. We know this one, that one, is the Lord’s beloved, and we give due respect to such people.

Therefore the Christian, no longer accusing of being used without heart, is used by the Lord for the least and the lost. With joy, we Christians alight upon a newcomer, who did not go with us through the valley of shadow and death, who did not sign their name “Present” at the tedious church disputes or roll-calls, who did not caution their speech and circumscribe their expenditures. We Christians delight thus to be at bedrock, alive because we have died with Christ and the life we live we live to God, not to sin (Ro 6:8ff). We have a new set of arms and feet and heart and muscle and mind and frame, those bequeathed us by a God who, yes, loved us. And so our bedrock dismay becomes awakened joy, peace in believing, strength to say “Yes” and “Indeed” to those masses now coming to the baptismal font.

We were in our own sphere for a time, far removed and fighting inner battles and outer doubts. We were speaking a language unintelligible to the crowd. But now, through no effort or deserving of their own, these our common neighbors and members of society, are at our doorstep. They are “getting it”; they each are as though they had been with us from the get-go. And thus our little sphere has gone global, gone viral, gone fashionable. And this is possible because we have lost ourselves and found Jesus, who looks on us with all the affection of an approving parent.