The Better Man

The sage lectured brilliantly.
Before him, two images:
"Now this one is a devil,
"And this one is me."
He turned away.
Then a cunning pupil
Changed the positions.
Turned the sage again:
"Now this one is a devil,
"And this one is me."
The pupils sat, all grinning,
And rejoiced in the game.
But the sage was a sage. 

-- LVIII, from Stephen Crane's collection called The Black Riders and Other Lines



Wretched man that I am! Who will deliver me from this body of death? -- Romans 7:24

If I were a better man, I would surely do better things; therefore, if I do better things, I will be a better man. 

There is a time for thinking that, a time for believing that I am thoroughly not right and desperately in need of improvement.  I need to give up a bad habit or cultivate a better one.  In the end, though, as our favorite Preacher, the author of Ecclesiastes, would say, all is vanity.  Self-improvement is generally another name for self-deception.  I doubt that my best fillet knife would go between my self and my devil except I lose some skin.

My only hope -- usually through repeated disappointment and failure, for I am nothing if not hard-headed, is to recognize the hopelessness of separating my "good" self from my "bad" self.  You know that old story about our nature being like an evil dog and a good dog, and the one that gets stronger is the one you feed?  How did that work out for Ol' Yeller?  The good dog gets contaminated by what the bad dog carries to the point that one is just as vicious and unholy in its way as the other.

So I think I will just give up.  In fact, I should just give up right from the first.  Did you ever wonder why Jesus had to grow to adulthood, spend time in the desert, go through three and a half years of teaching, preaching, and healing before He was crucified?  Why couldn't Joseph and Mary just have given up right from the first and let Herod kill the Messiah?  He was born to die, might as well get it out of the way and go straight to the resurrection.  Unless we have Asperger Syndrome or some other impairment, most of us will understand that a shortcut is impossible.  The redeeming power of Christ's death is a function of the life He lived and the path He walked. 

The idea of surrender is familiar to Christians.  It's something we know we should do, but some of us find ourselves talking about it more than being surrendered because there's so  much input -- even in church -- about improving the outlook and opportunities for this dead man we are carrying around.  In Adam all died.  Only in Christ are all made alive.  I need raising not repair.