Hold my faith for me! I cannot grasp it right now!
~ An African mother in travail of childbirth, to her attendants.
“I have cut off nations;
their battlements are in ruins;
I have laid waste their streets
so that no one walks in them;
their cities have been made desolate,
without a man, without an inhabitant. …
“Therefore wait for Me,” declares the Lord, …
“For at that time I will change the speech of the peoples
to a pure speech,
that all of them may call upon the name of the Lord
and serve him with one accord.
From beyond the rivers of Cush
my worshippers, the daughter of my dispersed ones,
shall bring my offering. …
Sing aloud, O daughter of Zion;
shout, O Israel!
Rejoice and exult with all your heart,
O daughter of Jerusalem!
The Lord has taken away the judgements against you;
He has cleared away your enemies.
The King of Israel, the Lord, is in your midst;
you shall never again fear evil.
On that day it shall be said to Jerusalem:
“Fear not, O Zion;
let not your hands grow weak.
The Lord your God is in your midst,
a Mighty Warrior Who will save;
He will rejoice over you with gladness;
He will quiet you by his love;
He will exult over you with loud singing.
I will gather those of you who mourn for the festival,
so that you will no longer suffer reproach.
~ from Zephaniah 3
Oh beloved, it is true.
Righteousness is the foundation of G_d’s throne. And through what Jesus has done for us, we are becoming a part – and partaker of – the very foundation from which The Head rules His Kingdom. As it is written in 2 Corinthians 5, as His new creations, we are becoming the righteousness of G_d in Christ (our right action is informed and empowered by our new Life in Jesus), and this is building out a platform for eternity to be radically better than it might have been.
All of this started (in time) at Christmas. Although, as it is also written, all of this was finished at the slaying of the Risen Lamb well before the foundations of this universe. And as such, we are intimately saturated in a plan that was wrought in the æternal councils of the vast ages before the first star shone in this universe.
And here begins our Crisis…
Our view is so small. A part of us ‘gets’ that we are part of something larger than this moment on this earth. But we don’t have any way to put the new creation we are, into any sort of context. Eternity (we think) is too large to comprehend. Even our language and maths leave us unable to even express what eternity is. Said more simply, we know that we are part of something FAR greater than ourselves – but we can’t really even begin to grasp it.
And the pain and separation in this world really do put a drag on our spirits. We are a bit like the special forces operator who has been cut off from his buddies during a firefight. We are laid back in a defilade, checking our supplies in the dark. Radio has gone silent. Batteries on our night vision monocle seems low too.
With our free hand we note that we have only one extra magazine, and one grenade. We take a pull on our camelback and guess there is about 700cc of clean water left. And beyond the granola bar in our TAC bag, we have a tourniquet, some bandages, a glow stick and one pain syrette if we survive a big hit.
We know that we are most definitely in hip-deep yogurt. If we cannot re-establish contact with our squad. We are not going to make it home on our feet. No way…
In the same way, time seems to crush in on us. Like dirt falling back into a trench as we dig, the pain and loss of this life attempt to bury us.
Still…
Deep within us all there is an amazing inner sanctuary of the soul, a holy place, a divine center, a speaking voice, to which we may continuously return. Eternity is at our hearts, pressing upon our time-torn lives, warming us with intimations of an astounding destiny, calling us home unto itself…. It is a seed stirring to life if we do not choke it…. Here is the slumbering Christ, stirring to be awakened, to become the soul we clothe in earthly form and action.
~Thomas R. Kelly (1893-1941)
Can we see it?
What if we are not alone in this dark warfare? What if the planning before time, took into consideration that there would be times just like this, and made Provision to get that trapped soldier through the dark nights of his soul?
One of the realities of Christmas, is that our L_RD Christ Jesus entered the world as fully G_d, and took on the full form of a human man. And, while this is a mystery, it is not an ‘ivory tower’ kind of thought. No, rather, it is that Jesus Himself, made Himself one with our form of existence.
Why?
Well, let’s defer to some experts here from across the centuries in the Church. And please, as you read, don’t pull back. The doctrine here is as solid in Scripture as any that are laid out. Beloved, the crisis of our faith that comes from our limited view of Christmas, is solved in The One Who is The Way, The Truth, and The Life.
The Body of Christ is FAR more tangible than we often think (i.e., a group of people who happen to be true followers of Jesus), we are actually, and truly being built into the very Body of our Lord Jesus Christ. In our communion with Him, we are not preparing for some future one-ness (though that is coming also). We are participating in a CURRENT REALITY.
When we begin to see this, the writings that speak to our eventual likeness to – and complete union with – Christ take on ‘Marianas Trench-like‘ depth. And all the language of us being like Him, and being made one with Him, are drawn to their point in 2 Peter 1:
“May grace and peace be multiplied to you in the knowledge of God and of Jesus our Lord. … His divine power has granted to us all things that pertain to life and godliness, through the knowledge of Him who called us to His own glory and excellence, by which He has granted to us His precious and very great promises, so that through them you may become partakers of the divine nature, having escaped from the corruption that is in the world because of sinful desire.
This passage, if read in the context of all Scripture, should bring us to the astonished and humbled “OH!,” when seeing Reality as it really is. A final gasp, falling into both comprehending – yet befuddled – silence.
The reality is far beyond anything we can hope or imagine. The final consummation of our destiny is to become FULLY Human, in the same what that Jesus became at Christmas. And the fullness of our humanity is to united to the likeness of Christ.
We are to be deified (lower case), but with the only difference between us and God, being that we had a beginning, and were purchased (bonded) out of slavery, and adopted and re-bonded as love-servants and full heirs of His Family and Kingdom.
St. Augustine of Hippo seems to have seen it nearly as clearly as Isaiah and The Beloved Disciple, John… “See what you believe. Become what you see.” … “If you, therefore, are Christ’s body and members, it is your own mystery that is placed on the Lord’s table! It is your own mystery that you are receiving! You are saying ‘Amen’ to what you are: your response is a personal signature, affirming your faith. When you hear ‘The body of Christ’, you reply ‘Amen.’ Be a member of Christ’s body, then, so that your “Amen” may ring true!” … “Behold what you are. Become what you receive.”
The crisis either deepens for us, or finds infinite resolution in this one truth: Our current Union with the Eternal G_d-Man, our L_RD Jesus Christ. Will we have the humility to accept the reality of the astounding ‘divine condescension’ of our Creator, wherein He wills to utterly fulfill His initial intent by inculcating within us our true – and divine – nature?
Will we, as Scripture and the ancient catechisms taught, embrace our true identity as fully Human beings?…
So, are you feeling alone, and stuck in time? Are the battles of this season overwhelming for you? Perhaps you (and this fool of a writer) need to allow ourselves to see the the crisis has already been addressed in an overwhelming and infinite way!
Tonight is your night, warriors. Know who you are in Christ.
As kingfishers catch fire, dragonflies draw flame;As tumbled over rim in roundy wells Stones ring; like each tucked string tells, each hung bell’s Bow swung finds tongue to fling out broad its name; Each mortal thing does one thing and the same: Deals out that being indoors each one dwells; Selves — goes itself; myself it speaks and spells, Crying Whát I dó is me: for that I came. I say móre: the just man justices; Keeps grace: thát keeps all his goings graces; Acts in God’s eye what in God’s eye he is —Chríst — for Christ plays in ten thousand places, Lovely in limbs, and lovely in eyes not his
To the Father through the features of men’s faces.
~ GERARD MANLEY HOPKINS
Thank you