Made Whole

… [A]n inheritance that is imperishable, undefiled, and unfading, kept in heaven for you, who by God's power are being guarded through faith for a salvation ready to be revealed in the last time.  In this you rejoice, though now for a little while, if necessary, you have been grieved by various trials … 1 Peter 1:4-6

We might think of it this way, just for an exercise, that the unity of the cosmos was shattered at the Fall.  What we need, as humans – as the keepers of creation we were meant to be, is a restoration of that perfect, primordial communion.  Salvation means that we become whole.  The break is healed. 

I am beginning, slowly, to understand why there is so much chicanery and silliness associated with Christianity and enlightenment in general.  It’s very difficult to talk about the relationship between selflessness and tribulation without sounding as though the problems of life are illusions or that God is some kind of sadist or something. 

We are going to grieve in this world, and our grief and our pain are real.  God does not waste our suffering if we are willing to hand it over to Him.  We do not ever have to “go through all this for nothing”.  He will order the broken and jumbled, seemingly random chunks and pieces of life into a stairway that we might ascend. 

The inheritance that is being kept for us is exactly that wholeness or oneness and the barrier to heaven is the self to which we are so attached.  My fear is that an end to my “self” is the same as non-being.  It isn’t.  The one who enters heaven has detached only from the illusory persona, the mask of thoughts and emotions and attitudes that is the old carnal mind.  We mistake the mask we wear and the character we have come to create and inhabit for our being. 

Shatter my illusions, O Lord, that I might be unbroken.

Masquerade

And Zacchaeus stood and said to the Lord, “Behold, Lord, the half of my goods I give to the poor. And if I have defrauded anyone of anything, I restore it fourfold.”  And Jesus said to him, “Today salvation has come to this house, since he also is a son of Abraham.  For the Son of Man came to seek and to save the lost.” – Luke 19:8-10

Generally, those who read this passage about a repentant tax collector think about the good that Zacchaeus did in his new-found generosity.  I am one of those who think that actions speak louder than words and that being a giver is virtuous.  Whether I would admit to it or not, there’s a part of my brain that thinks Zacchaeus “saved himself” by giving away his possessions and restoring what he had gained by extortion. 

But if we look at what Jesus said, there’s something more going on.  We can’t save ourselves no matter how good we are.  The Lord seeks us as if we were lost sheep, gathers us up and takes us home.  Salvation came into the house of Zacchaeus when Jesus entered it, but it all hinges on who we are.  (Note:  Father Stephen continues his excellent series on morality, and I’m just saying, Amen, here today.) 

Zacchaeus didn’t need to repent because he was an agent of the Roman government and a scallywag.  He needed to remember that he was a “son of Abraham”, that he was part of a covenant that put him in communion with God, and made him, and us, as 2 Peter 1:4 says, “partakers of the divine nature”.  The little man had fallen into sin and corruption because he did not know who he was.

And so it is with us all.  No one is going to go to hell because they lied, murdered, fornicated, cursed and swore, or whatever else.  We do those things because we are dead and in hell, because we are separated and isolated from communion with God, because we are living according to the flesh.  Frankly, if there’s no way back to God except the path of self-improvement, there is not much reason for me to stop living like a devil because I am not going to make it anyway. 

I watched part of the movie Charade recently.  Imagine you had a face like Cary Grant or Audrey Hepburn.  Instead of showing the world that face, you decide to wear a gorilla mask all the time.  The mask is ugly, and it causes people to reject you, and it causes all kinds of problems in your life.  It’s filthy.  You can’t keep the stupid thing clean, and it stinks.  It makes you sweat and is almost unbearable in the summer.  You do what you can to make it look better and less hideous and to make it more comfortable, but nothing really works. 

Take off the damn mask.

Christ has given us His life.  He took our old life to the Cross, put it death and buried it. 

There is therefore now no condemnation for those who are in Christ Jesus. (Romans 8:1)

Lasting

[F]or the LORD knows the way of the righteous, but the way of the wicked will perish. – Psalm 1:6

Though this is a brief psalm of only six verses, it effectively contrasts the wicked and the righteous.  Those who follow God are, like a tree by a stream, deeply rooted and enduring while the ungodly, the mockers and the scornful are little more than chaff caught up in the wind.  Their apparent movement and triumphant dancing in the air is an illusion that quickly passes away as they are left in dust, as dust.  Food for that cursed one:  The LORD God said to the serpent, Because you have done this, cursed are you above all livestock and above all beasts of the field; on your belly you shall go, and dust you shall eat all the days of your life. (Genesis 3:14)

Dust and ash will be the end of the works of many who are saved themselves, as …  each one's work will become manifest, for the Day will disclose it, because it will be revealed by fire, and the fire will test what sort of work each one has done.  If the work that anyone has built on the foundation survives, he will receive a reward.  If anyone's work is burned up, he will suffer loss, though he himself will be saved, but only as through fire.  (1 Corinthians 3:13-15)

Many are the saints who will have much to show for their work here on earth -- me, probably not so much.  My time, energy, and meager abilities have most often been given to those things which will not endure.  The treasures I have laid up in heaven are, I am afraid, not very impressive, if there are indeed any that exist at all.  Perhaps there will be one or two that I have helped along the way.  I might point to loyalty and standing by a friend, but that is bred in me and hardly something for which I deserve credit.  I might as well try to claim a reward for blue eyes. 

I’m expecting my works to be turned to cold, gray ash, but that’s all right.  I’ve had a good time with it, and I have no room to complain if I am in heaven at all.  As I have more in common with the wicked than the righteous, apart from the redemptive work of Jesus Christ, I would have no hope whatever. 

The only Righteous One is Jesus.  He is that Tree, that Vine planted in the well-watered place.  None of us can be more than a branch, more or less fruitful, drawing from His abundant, everlasting life all that we may produce of any eternal value.  Everything of our old nature eventually gets cut off … and withers; and the branches are gathered, thrown into the fire, and burned. 

So it is, and so it must be.  It is wise to not get too caught up by and invested in what we do, what we have, or how we live here.  If we do our best to dwell close to the heart of the Lord perhaps there will be some small thing of which we may say it was nothing of ourselves but it was done by Him through us to His glory.  And it will last.

Searcher

So Jesus again said to them, “Truly, truly, I say to you, I am the door of the sheep.  All who came before me are thieves and robbers, but the sheep did not listen to them.  I am the door. If anyone enters by me, he will be saved and will go in and out and find pasture.  The thief comes only to steal and kill and destroy. I came that they may have life and have it abundantly.  I am the good shepherd. The good shepherd lays down his life for the sheep. – John 10:7-11

The true shepherd of the sheep, the legitimate shepherd enters by the door.  There is no surprise, no deception.  This is how we know that Jesus is the Good Shepherd.  He came in by the door.  But, He says, He is also the Door.  What does that mean?  We might think of it as the whole of the gospel – the death, burial, and resurrection of Christ, so in a sense, it must start with His taking on flesh. 

For us, salvation means entering into the sheepfold, which, in another facet of this truth, means entering into and being a part of the Body of Christ.  Public profession of Jesus as our Savior and our declaration of union with Him through baptism is the door we must pass through.  We can lay aside for the moment special cases, such as the thief on the cross.  Baptism, when possible, is a necessity. 

For those of us who enter by the Door and become part of the fold, we may be assured that our Shepherd will watch over us.  From time to time, some of us, perhaps with just a faint hint of goat DNA in our make ups, will wander, stray, get out of sight, miss the call to head home.  

My wife has a picture of Christ as Shepherd surrounded by sheep and holding one little lamb who looks lovingly into the Master’s face.  She used to tell our granddaughter that she, our granddaughter, was the lamb.  A white sheep stands beneath the lamb in the Lord’s arms, also looking up into His face.  This, she said, is Grandma.  A black sheep to the back of the group looks on.  This, my wife would add, laughing, is Poppy.

Some of us feel like outcasts, like that sheep that is out of the first circle.  That may be why we pay less attention to where the rest of the flock feeds, why we search for the edge of the precipice and try the narrow trails.  I am not saying we are right to do so, but we do.  The Shepherd counts His sheep.  If we are missing, out of sight, off on some adventure, He will come looking for us.  

I don’t deserve it.  I haven’t earned it.  There is no way I am worth the trouble.  I might be out stuck in some crevice, fallen down in some ravine, lost and alone with the coyotes circling, and I have no one to blame except myself.  It’s not like it’s the first time or even the seventh time.  I have done this over and over, and the result is always the same.  I am stupid and willful and arrogant.  OK, maybe not so arrogant at the moment as I see those long, sharp teeth throwing back the last red rays of day. 

The sound is faint and distant.  The circling predators hardly notice, but I am pretty sure what it is.  After all, I’ve heard it before.  A moment later, and it is louder and closer, enough to make the coyotes nervous.  The circle ceases to tighten.  Again, and I utter a plaintive cry of my own.  It is answered.  The pack scatters, slinking away, back into the shadows to disappear. 

It’s full dark now, but He knows the way.  I just stumble alongside and listen as He tells me how He followed my trail and found me, how glad He is that He got there in time.  He always does.  Back with the rest, for the time being, I am not such an outcast.  We are all happy to be safe and together under the Shepherd’s clear and watchful eye, heading home.    

Watch, Man

Behold, I come as a thief. Blessed is he that watcheth, and keepeth his garments, lest he walk naked, and they see his shame. -- Revelation 16:15 (KJV)

The ESV says “the one who stays awake and keeps his garments on”, that is, the one who had the watch.  One of my favorite characters in literature is Allan Quatermain who is called by the natives, Macumazahn, "Watcher-by-Night".  Though Quatermain is an extraordinary shot, his truly defining characteristic is this alertness and willingness to peer into the darkness, to delve into the mysterious and the unknown, to guard and defend.  Jesus said that night is coming, when no one can work, and we take that, rightly I think, to mean that there are works appointed for us to do in our life and at specific times when we have light and opportunity.  Someday, the night will close in, our time will be gone, and we will sleep, from the perspective of this world. 

But it also speaks of the watching each of us must do in order for us to transition from the darkness of the natural life to the light of Christ, our Day.  During our night of mere human understanding – illumined only by meager, sputtering watch fires of our own devising, we are beset by many threats and dangers.  There is much lurking in the darkness that would take advantage of the lax, the drowsy, and the distracted.  Our watchfulness thwarts the attacks that would be launched. 

Not only must we be on the alert against the darkness and those things that would break through and carry us away, we must also be awake, watching and ready to welcome Christ when He comes to us.  He is the Light of the world -- the Light of our world.  We stand at the portal to open the door and admit the rightful Lord of this house.  This is the essence of salvation, when the Light dwells within us, illuminating, enlightening, and exercising dominion over our lives, chasing the darkness as the morning subdues the night.   

Once the light of Christ illumines our souls, our burden is eased and shared as now the Lord assumes the role of guarding and protecting that which is His.  Now we are watched over by One who never slumbers or sleeps, whose sight can pierce the deepest darkness, mist and cloud and shadow.  Our own watchfulness remains essential.  Our vigils do not cease but become, more and more, joyous times of communion with our Lord.  When we fall asleep, we know we will awake to the new and eternal Day, in the presence of our Watcher-by-Night.