2024-09-04 A Meditation on Two Halves

“20 Being asked by the Pharisees when the kingdom of God would come, he answered them, “The kingdom of God is not coming in ways that can be observed, 21 nor will they say, ‘Look, here it is!’ or ‘There!’ for behold, the kingdom of God is in the midst of you.” 22 And he said to the disciples, “The days are coming when you will desire to see one of the days of the Son of Man, and you will not see it. 23 And they will say to you, ‘Look, there!’ or ‘Look, here!’ Do not go out or follow them. 24 For as the lightning flashes and lights up the sky from one side to the other, so will the Son of Man be in his day. 25 But first he must suffer many things and be rejected by this generation. 26 Just as it was in the days of Noah, so will it be in the days of the Son of Man. 27 They were eating and drinking and marrying and being given in marriage, until the day when Noah entered the ark, and the flood came and destroyed them all. 28 Likewise, just as it was in the days of Lot—they were eating and drinking, buying and selling, planting and building, 29 but on the day when Lot went out from Sodom, fire and sulfur rained from heaven and destroyed them all— 30 so will it be on the day when the Son of Man is revealed. 31 On that day, let the one who is on the housetop, with his goods in the house, not come down to take them away, and likewise let the one who is in the field not turn back. 32 Remember Lot’s wife. 33 Whoever seeks to preserve his life will lose it, but whoever loses his life will keep it. 34 I tell you, in that night there will be two in one bed. One will be taken and the other left. 35 There will be two women grinding together. One will be taken and the other left.” 37 And they said to him, “Where, Lord?” He said to them, “Where the corpse is, there the vultures will gather.”” (Luke 17:20-37 ESV)

Righteous thought on display, the halves made up around two notions: saved, unsaved, the thought on display comes automatically to each participant, either unto Registering, Attesting Unto, truths let us say “of Scripture” or—better—truths of Life Witness, Saints who Testified to us, the Handle passed down, and unto a strangely increasingly bizarre claim that some Other “Normalcy” should be the chimes of the day.

Should be the spirit saluted, no? It comes naturally to the soldier to speak in the wake of a Massive Case now resolved, of sin and of apology made, and of Tomorrow’s final waking up to a bright forgiven day, that Tomorrow being Now. Indeed, we can believe we are forgiven after paying some lumps, but Award goes to the soldier who recognizes the need here and Today and Now, thus to Believe, thus to Differentiate, thus to Substantiate. Already done: debts paid.

The alternate viewpoint, again, to the rubrics of time, to the social conventions, to the happenstance come-what-may, lacks one ingredient: repentance. All of us are hereby notified: you are recipients of a Right, a Permission, a Duty, to see life on the flipside of self-chosen deeds, flip-side of the passions that war with the spirit (passions of the flesh), flipside of the mock horror around any and all invocations of the Name. That breed of Atheistic life duly and finally sees their Lord in Jesus Himself, who, a pivotal enemy to the religious status-quo, had a personal quest so unbelievable and rare, yet now Owned by the one-half who are saved, or the two-thirds, or the ten percent, who knows.

The solemn truth is, we are no blowhards or illegitimate children and do not seek to one-up anyone, much less our sworn allies versus our natural enemies (which time reveals all persons to have), but rather we chart a Course, a Way, called Submission to a Storyline penitent. Called Eager… eager to live into a ‘Morrow not of our own handling, but Received whence and whereupon we have Died. Died to self, died to ambition, died to personal achievement. Yet we have not lost the flavor, not lost the juice, not lost the vivacity and alacrity: we are excited at Christ’s promises for tomorrow; we are ambitious for Lord’s clever plans of outlay and playing out; we are eager for Jesus’ sort of dastardly prize-fight. So in some fashion, even Christ’s own miracles, these we learn to adopt as par for the course for those who believe: we are stealing the show, stealing the credit insofar as yes it was we who prayed and Him who answered… but who let us claim the wordsmith right of boasting, so long as we rarely talk of ourselves and primarily talk of His Spirit and Service.