Do not be amazed that I told you that you must be born again – John 3:7
In Walker Percy’s novel Second Coming the protagonist goes into a cave intending to make it his tomb. He is, however, driven to seek a way of escape from the cave because of a painful toothache. In his search in the dark, he enters a passage that is very confined. He keeps crawling until he falls out into the open world. It’s been a while since I read the book, but, as best I recall, I didn’t catch on right away, whether through Percy’s skill or my own denseness. I have a feeling Nicodemus had a similar experience in his encounter with Jesus. Sometime later he was probably thinking about the whole conversation along with all he knew about the Lord and had a slap-your-head moment. Or, as Rip Taylor used to say, “You’ll think about this later, and you’ll laauugh!”
Evangelicals talk a lot about how easy it is to be born again. And it is. All one has to do is die first. We baptize people in water because it is so much easier than burying them and digging them back up. Life, death, and rebirth are akin to the dialectic thesis, antithesis, and synthesis. To experience any kind of true growth, we have to be hidden away, enter the crypt, and re-emerge.
Because Christ’s sacrifice on the Cross is a once-for-all carrying away of sin, I want to think that my own long, dark night of the soul is a once-for-all experience from which I should emerge into eternal sunlight and joy. In The Screwtape Letters, Lewis mentions the nature of man as being subject to a sort of sine wave shaped “law of undulation”. We gain ground; we lose a little; we gain a little more. It is enough to cause me to think that perhaps it’s all right if I have to keep entering the dark and coming out the other side.
In fact I think we may precipitate a cycle by our decisions to seek God. I believe beyond any question that God hears and answers our prayers. He gives us that which we seek, though it is common – in my case anyway – not to recognize the answer when it arrives. (See JWM’s WFB putting together old bikes) In many cases, an answer to prayer involves a trial or a crisis of opposition that seems to be not only blocking our deliverance but pushing us further away. I am taken aback and discouraged, but I should not be. The way up is down. The road to the light leads through darkness.
Our prayers try us, and the word of the Lord that comes to us as a result will test us, just as the word of his vision tried Joseph (Psalm 105:16-22) before leading to his deliverance and that of his people. Joseph went into the pit, from the pit to the chains of slavery, from slavery to the dungeon, from the dungeon to the throne. The thing I need to learn is, first, not to allow trials to convince me that God does not know what He is doing. Second, the valley of the shadow of death is a very real, very dark place through which my path to enlightenment leads, and I may be there more than once. Third, when in the valley of the shadow of death or the tomb or the pit or the cave, I will not get out if I sit down. I must keep going. Finally, it will not do me any good to take the back track. I cannot find my way out by going back the way I came. I must leave a “different way”.
7 comments:
Less time than normal to proofread. Excuse any typos.
Not to worry, Mushroom. I didn't see any.
More to the point, you're absolutely right. We die each day, mostly in small ways, but each day - each moment - we also have the choice, in mostly small ways, to be born again just a little closer to the light. In a sense, we are always in that cave. But how we respond is always up to us.
Amen to all that, brother.
Does anybody have a light?
RR
I was talking to a good friend the other day. He's having trouble at work- may lose a job he's held for over thirty years, and he's going through some serious misery, and stress. I started sharing some of what I went through when I lost the teaching job so many years ago, and this occurred to me: It was in 1993 that I first really prayed honestly, and with full sincerity- for God's will to take precedence over my own.
I lost the beautiful girl, all the friends I had, the motorcycle, the job, the fantastic apartment. I fell back on my artwork, and lost that. I fell back on exercise, and fitness, and lost that, and damn near my life, too. I must add that I did find my wife in all of this mess, but It took a smack upside the head from 'the voice' or I'd have missed out. I also found the internet, and that brought me to Gagdad Bob, and that lead to the Coonosphere, and that brought me right here, right now. I don't have religion in the formal sense. I'm still a feral believer. But somewhere in all this I have digested a single Truth: That the G*d who wills existence into being took on human form, and walked with us for a season. The theology, and metaphysics are hugely entertaining, but in light of the Single Truth, they are really just a diversion to me. A lot of stuff is hard right now, but that's how it always is, and always shall be. At my core I am happy. At my core I am grateful. I don't want back a single thing I lost. (well, maybe the Harley ;)...)
Great post Mushroom.
John M
Well said, John.
For many years I was in church at least three times a week. I taught adults, youth, filled in for the pastor, whatever. Honestly, none of that stuff did me much good. I have some understanding for ministers and prominent Christians who fail and fall into sin.
Too often church people think that once we go through the "initiation" we're good. Our problems should be over. People will give lip service to the idea that no one is perfect, but don't think for a minute that they will cut you any slack if you show imperfection or admit a weakness.
My own problem was that I knew I was screwed up. People would come up and tell me I needed to be in the ministry. I'd smile, while thinking to myself, "If only you knew."
I never actually did anything to be ashamed of -- but I thought plenty of bad stuff and said a few things I wished I could have taken back. But, more importantly, I knew I did not have what I was claiming to have and what I appeared to other people to have. I could help other people but I could not help myself.
I could see in Christ what I was meant to be, but I had no idea how to get there. I was doing all the things that religious people said I should be doing in order to be right -- but it was not working. It wasn't until I gave it up, stepped back, and dropped down into the darkness of apparent despair and hopelessness that I began to see, as John says, the Single Truth.
Wow. Thanks for this post and comments, Mushroom.
The light of Truth never holds back, does it? Painfully so, at times.
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