By the Mark

Beloved, now we are children of God, and it has not appeared as yet what we shall be. We know that, when He appears, we shall be like Him, because we will see Him just like He is. And everyone who has this hope fixed on Him purifies himself, just as He is pure. – 1 John 3:2-3

The other day Rick quoted Matthew 20:20-28 about the mother of James and John coming to Jesus and requesting that her sons have places on the right and left hand of the Lord in the Kingdom. In response Jesus asks first if they are willing and able to drink of His cup, or, in other words, to suffer with and for Him. They answer, somewhat overconfidently I suspect, that they are able. Still, the Lord says, even though you will do that, those positions of authority are not necessarily for you.

I had a friend many years ago who was an engineer and quite a bright man. In addition to being a good engineer, he was a licensed minister in a large Protestant denomination. He told me once that he thought all his life he was destined for great things. He married a woman who had the same belief about herself and him. She studied music and was a decent pianist. I liked them both, though I was not always comfortable with them. They were, in a word, flakes. Eventually, the flaky, grandiose thinking led them to do some really stupid things and wreck their lives. A cold analyst would have asked them, since they had never accomplished anything of notable significance, where did they get their delusions of grandeur?

Others of us may have to guard against a tendency to go too far in the other direction, thinking that worth is solely a function of what we do rather than what we are. To crave fame and status is an alluring trap. To think we will never amount to anything, that we are unimportant, and that what we do makes no difference is just as dangerous. We really are children of God, redeemed by the blood of Christ, reconciled to our Father through the Cross. While it is a glorious truth, it does not mean that we are destined to any glory or renown in this life.

It may be best not to think of it as “this life”. It is this journey, or this path. No matter how we perceive it, it is a path of purification, whether we plunge into the filth and are cleansed through suffering, or we reach some point of awareness where we purify ourselves. Ridding ourselves of the clinging delusion is why we are here. I have even started to wonder if this isn’t why I have had such a struggle as I have been going systematically through First John. Is there something in this little letter that strips away the dullness, that wipes the fog off the mirror and allows me to see more clearly who I am?

We are children of God. Children have lots of ideas of what it is like to be an adult. One of the endearing things about little ones is how they perceive what their parents and other adults are doing or saying. They are trying to understand, with mixed results, why certain things happen. It is sad to see a child, with that limited comprehension, forced to “grow up” too soon. I think our Father in heaven is careful about this. He knows what we can handle. He knows when to let us play. He also knows when to push us, to pull back the veil and show us more of the truth, because worse than growing up too fast is not growing up at all.

I am not sure how that works: “…when He appears, we shall be like Him because we will see Him just like He is.” Does that mean that seeing Him will transform us? Or does it mean that when He appears to us, we will realize that we have been transformed? Both? When I see Jesus, I will see who I really am, and I will be awestruck. When John talks about “this hope”, he’s talking about the hope of seeing the Lord, the hope of obtaining even a glimpse of the Real and the True. When I see the Lord, I won’t have questions. The face of God will be the glass in which I see. I will understand all that I have endured. By the light of His countenance, I will read the message in my scars.

Blessed are the pure in heart, Jesus said. Why? Because they shall see God.


I will know my Savior
When I come to Him
By the mark
Where the nails have been.
(David Rawlings/Gillian Welch)

If you can find it, Dailey and Vincent, on their eponymous CD, do a definitive version of “By the Mark”.