The Wrong of Return

For people who speak thus make it clear that they are seeking a homeland.  If they had been thinking of that land from which they had gone out, they would have had opportunity to return. – Hebrews 11:14-15

There have been times, I will admit, when I have thought it might be pleasant or at least convenient to go back to the old way of living, to close my eyes to reality, to pretend and to believe the delusion for a while.  From time to time, I stumble over faith.  Righteousness has its trials.  We feel alienated.  So much of what seems to captivate worldlings appears to us to be empty, as nourishing as sawdust.  We may wonder what we are missing.  The non-believer or the nominal believer -- i.e., the person who “believes in God and all that”, may be quite content and happy with his or her place in life.

When the man known as Abram left Ur of the Chaldeans, he left behind many who were satisfied with their lot and their gods.  Like millions today, they did not believe that there could be a better land, a better city, or a better life.  “I hear a voice calling,” the song says.  “It must be my Lord.”  Abram heard that Voice; those he left behind did not hear it or chose to ignore it. 

Moses, an exile in the land of Midian, named his son Gershom, for, he said, I have been a stranger in a strange land.  The Dead said, What a long, strange trip it’s been.  I can identify with both.  Right now, I’m probably inclined to be less attached to this life than I was a month ago, but it has been a long time since I believed that my earthly existence was anything other than a passage to the truly significant. 

We are not talking about physical death and new life in heaven.  Heaven begins when we turn from the world.  Eternal life begins, not at the edge of the open grave but at the moment we turn to Christ, the Open Door.  Who that has stepped through the Door and entered into the land where light is as solid as gold would turn away to the ghostly, hopeless, leaf-on-the-wind existence he knew before? 

“If they had been thinking of that land …” – that was the mistake the Israelites made as they wandered through the desert.  They dwelt by their thoughts in Egypt still.  They longed for that from which they had not turned.  Instead of looking ahead and seeking the kingdom -- the Land of Promise, the land of milk and honey, they spoke of melons and onions – bitter enough when they could have them, now sweetened and enriched by memory. 

Sometimes I am no better when I think of the past as a land to which I would return, to moments when I would do things differently, when I think, If I had known then what I know now.  I forget that those moments were the path that led me to this Door, to the land of resurrection where that which has died as seed lives again in full bloom.  God will forgive us our sighs and even turn them to smiles as we press on.

To be happy on this journey we need only [s]et [our] minds on things that are above, not on things that are on earth (Colossians 3:2).

Call to Battle

And she bare him a son, and he called his name Gershom: for he said, I have been a stranger in a strange land. -- Exodus 2:22

You are warned.  This is different, and I won’t blame you if you think I’ve breathed too many paint fumes over the last two or three weeks.  If it doesn’t speak to you, just ignore it.  Not everyone is called to the same battle.

Though not my favorite Heinlein novel, the phrase does summarize my feelings about life sometimes.  I said recently that I thought the Tabernacle Moses built was a better type than the Temple of Solomon in representing our earthly journey.  No one symbol can ever carry the full message, and we need the temple in the holy city to speak of all that waits when our battles are finished and peace reigns. 

Meanwhile, we may cross into the Promised Land, but there are still battles, enemies to be overcome, and adversaries to be conquered.  The older I get the more alien and hostile the world seems to me.  It surprises me that I have made it this far in such a long, strange trip, to find myself, in an odd way, a point man.  If silver hair gave us wisdom, I would be in pretty good shape.  Back in the freak days, someone would say that there are a lot of rednecks hiding under long hair.  So I see a lot of empty heads sprouting gray thatch, and I wonder about my own store of wisdom. 

It doesn’t matter.  I don’t know what else I might be left here to do if it is not to watch and pray. 

I was reading something yesterday, and it suddenly struck me that the internet is a lot like a college dorm or frat house.   No matter how stupid something is, if two or three people argue for it, it begins to sound more sensible.  The internet is a veritable fever swamp of stupidity.  It’s also filled with good things to learn and be enlightened by, but we all know there is a dark pool in its midst that is sometimes difficult to avoid. 

I think, if you look at how opinions have shifted and civilization has deteriorated over the last fifteen years, a lot of it can be traced to the increasing exposure to sin, sickness, and depravity.  Don’t misunderstand where I’m going with this.  I’m not going to tell anybody to cut off internet service – not that a router filter or the deletion of some bookmarks would necessarily be a bad idea. 

It is a strange land.  Christians, even with the proliferation of Christian sites and resources available, are strangers in it.  We have to understand that we are waging war against an adversary who is real, more intelligent than we are, and truly diabolical.  Jesus didn’t call the devil the father of lies for no reason.  Nothing is easier to do than corrupt a mind through the web of false words and images spun in cyberspace. 

Call it a vision if you want, I could see all this in a moment.  I was convicted, not just about my own dalliances with evil, but about my nonchalance regarding those who become trapped in the web of deception, who are relentlessly sucked down into the bottomless filth.  Sex and perversion are no doubt a major contributor but hardly all the problem.  There is the glorification of the useless, the encouragement of consumption, and the enhancement of envy. 

Again, there is a lot that is positive; we have to recognize the rot.  My heart was broken by what I was shown, and I realized that I needed to pray.  We don’t need to limit freedom.  We need to pray that people will be set free.   Minds and lines don’t need to be closed; they need to be opened to see the truth.  I am praying that the Holy Spirit will convince us of the truth, show us where we have strayed and turn us back to the path of righteousness.  He is the only one who can do it, the only one who has ever been able to do it.  He is God, and He does not change.   

No Particular Place To Go

For Christ has entered, not into holy places made with hands, which are copies of the true things, but into heaven itself, now to appear in the presence of God on our behalf. -- Hebrews 9:24

I don’t have much time today.  Paul says we are ambassadors for Christ – someone sent on a mission into an alien environment.  He elsewhere depicts us as soldiers, standing our ground on a hostile field.  We are called by Peter, pilgrims and strangers, echoing Moses’ naming of his son, Gershom, saying, “I have been a stranger in a strange land.”  God invades and rules over the natural world through us.  The full extent of this mastery of the material is seen in Jesus whom the winds and seas had to obey. 

We understand how Christ was an invader in the Incarnation, but when He ascended, He became, in a way, an invader in the halls of heaven.  This may be the most overtly neo-platonic verse in the Bible – at least as far as I can recall right now.  You can read back in Exodus, when Moses was on the mountain, that he was shown the realities and, so far as was possible, outfitted the Tabernacle accordingly.

An aside:  the Tabernacle has long seemed to me to be “better” than the Temple as it better represents both Christ and us.  It was covered in skins, just as we are.  I am suspicious of the Temple as encouraging a strain of apostasy that remains today in a measure of inappropriate reverence for buildings.    Anyway.

The righteous dead went to a place called “paradise” or “Abraham’s bosom”.  It was a place of rest and ease, but it was not heaven.  Hades was a segregated gated community:  paradise on one side, gehenna on the other, kind of like Missouri and Illinois.  But when Christ descended into the realm of death, he “led captivity captive”:  But grace was given to each one of us according to the measure of Christ's gift.  Therefore it says, “When he ascended on high he led a host of captives, and he gave gifts to men.”  (In saying, “He ascended,” what does it mean but that he had also descended into the lower parts of the earth?  He who descended is the one who also ascended far above all the heavens, that he might fill all things.) (Ephesians 4:7-10)

It sounds like Jesus broke the righteous dead out of their somewhat pleasant prison and took them with Him as He returned to heaven, where they (and we), apart from Him, had no place.  Jesus didn’t lie to the repentant thief on the cross.  He said, “This day, you will be with Me in paradise.”  He just didn’t add that it was only a weekend trip.  Then they loaded up the truck, and they moved to Beverly. 

Christ is now in heaven, in that reality which we think of as ideal, representing us, speaking and interceding on behalf of us.  That’s a good thing to know.  Moreover, I am not one who puts much credence in concepts like “soul sleep”.  Paul uses the euphemism “sleep” for the death of the physical body.  I don’t think that those who have died are no longer conscious – though I freely admit I could be wrong.  If I’m not, there’s no reason to think that those who are absent from the body and consequently present with the Lord (2 Corinthians 5:8) are unaware of that which Christ is aware.  I believe that some of those who are now at home with the Lord could well be interceding on behalf of those who remain in their earthly bodies.   

That may not sound exactly earth-shattering, but it is pretty strong stuff for us Protestants.  I don't think anybody is praying to saints or Mary; they are asking the saints for agreement in praying to the Father.  "Pray for us sinners."  I don't see where that is much of a problem.  It would not surprise me to some day hear that an old Baptist preacher goes up every once in a while to remind the Lord to watch out for this old hillbilly.