2023-12-24 A Meditation on the Eve of the Fight

“13 No temptation has overtaken you that is not common to man. God is faithful, and he will not let you be tempted beyond your ability, but with the temptation he will also provide the way of escape, that you may be able to endure it.” (1 Cor 10:13 ESV)

The more ready the more tried: we had this figured out, we were ready and willing and able, then came utter madness and activities we could not think through reasonably. And then came war. As a prize which in an earlier day was all our readiness and anticipation, but today is on the flipside of a trying night of the soul, on the flipside of exasperation or what’s worse, maddening storylines. That the enemy made him or herself out to be an enemy because of a simple token misinterpreted, a character thought to be someone else, a strange refusal to bring to light with a simple query what luminated and inspired the fight. To fight, against us, against former friends. All this, and then today: the war.

Because it would have been too convenient for us to sally forth ready and coping, copacetic and peace. It would have been too poetic for us to have a fight song and a bit of poetry to carry us into the battle. It would have been too amenable to see our friends near and friends afar, in the battle get-up and manning the stations, as though all was already accounted a victory.

So to the prayer, the spirit who helps us through the sickness or maddened internal battles, which are anticipatory to the real thing. No less real, we learn a repose and a prayer, we learn a steadfastness and an immutability, unmovable, rock solid; no longer Touched but Uplifted and Carried. No longer knocked down but reckoned with and found pleasing. No longer harboring conceits about the rectitude of our Cause, but rather finding the proof in the awesome venture forward: into the battle that has made of itself its own legitimacy. We are legitimate as fighters and as soldiers, because we do not tolerate that state of war as somehow something cool-headed or desirable. We want an end to the bellicose stand. We want a concluding chord in that song for a moment heard and held, then for a pained moment lost in all the scuffle leading up to outright machinations and war.

We will emerge wild-eyed and yet capable for the fight. We know no trials have come upon man but that he or she is also given the strength to overcome. We do not obsess about the heights of evil, but talk condescendingly about Evil as a foe no longer feared. We make no big fuss about the opposition, but simply cope and understand the trials are for a season, and we shall—while often forgetting to give thanks—overcome. That day is a strange tomorrow. That day is a new beginning. That day is a rehearsal for the ease of uniform and welcome of battle armor, that will usher us to the heavenly banquet.

So all our good punditry, the stories of Grace triumphing over Law, the determination to avoid any language that condemns one another, the basic sermon lived out in the barracks, is a sermon of peaceful appreciation of others just as they are, in their own skin, and according to their own self-identification. We know the love called brotherly, sisterly: this we know to hold a sincerity that lasts long into the trials of this eve, this night, this battle armored up and suited up for. Somehow a genuine outreach turns hearts. Somehow a simple presence coaxes the soul. Somehow an aloof or appreciated walk together causes thanksgiving.