Eternity – The Word Worker

The Price of Easy

My favorite story is the Tolkien’s _Lord of the Rings_. In that story, the ring possesses power to change and shape the world to the will of its maker, appealing to the deepest desires or fears of whoever holds it. At one point, Frodo tries to rid himself of that responsibility by offering it to the most powerful being remaining in Middle-earth, Galadriel the elf queen.

At the time, all Galadriel longed for was an end to evil in Middle-earth. The ring’s power whispered to her promises of success. All she had to do was wear it, become a goddess able to banish Sauron and shape the world with her own ideals. All would bow before her, it promised, following her command, and the world would be only good. For a moment she faltered, everything she had ever truly wanted seemingly at her fingertips. There would be no more war and suffering; life would be perfect and effortless. Easy.

The problem was that all the promises were a lie. The ring’s creator was entirely evil, and the power within the ring came from the depths of his own wicked heart. Indeed, that power could not be separated from him; it was his voice that spoke through it, and he that wielded it regardless of who held it. Galadriel’s vision could never have been accomplished, and in trying to achieve it her own heart would have been irrevocably twisted into Sauron’s image.

Galadriel’s desire was natural. She and others like her were embroiled in a war against apparently impossible odds. Fear, pain, sorrow, and death covered the world as completely as the clouds of smoke and ash belched into the sky by the enemy’s forges. Any with the courage to stand against evil found themselves beleaguered from every side.

In similar fashion, followers of Christ in the first century A.D. faced the greatest hardship they could have imagined. Choosing a life that reflected God’s character brought opposition at every turn. Confused rumors led to accusations of treason. Rejection of religious traditions drove wedges in formerly peaceful relationships, even between parents and children, husbands and wives. Refusal to follow societal customs and disapproval of pagan practices often meant businesses failed, jobs were lost, families were hungry. Punishments for standing out were often harsh, as citizenship was a privilege granted to few and without citizenship few human rights were respected.

Under such circumstances, it would have been hard to resist the urge to compromise. After all, they truly wanted to change the world into God’s image. Why not punish those who rejected Him as harshly as they had been? Why not force God’s ideals on the world instead? Why not use the tools of idolatry and materialism to become accepted back into society and make life, and teaching, easier?

The problem was that being different, living that harder life, was God’s image. Everything done to them, all the power leveraged against them, was the power and mindset of evil. Satan whispered through society just as surely as Sauron used the ring in the story. Using his tools might have felt easier, but the price would have been the destruction of everything they sought to build, would have been the loss of their very identity. Sauron could not produce anything good or beautiful because he himself was terrible. Satan cannot build anything worthwhile because he himself has rejected the source of all worth. “Every good and perfect gift is from above, coming down from the Father of lights, who does not change like shifting shadows.” (James 1:17)

Galadriel resisted the ring’s call, saying that instead of embracing power she would diminish. God’s people who resisted society’s pressure for an easy life and earthly influence apparently experienced a similar sensation of collapse as more and more landed in prison or were executed, and those who remained became outcasts. In reality, Galadriel’s act of humility regained her true greatness, the glory that had been lost in banishment from the presence of the gods. Her banishment was ended, and she returned home to the throne that should have been hers all along. God’s people who surrender control and remain content with the battle in which they are placed will also receive a greater glory than any they could seek here on earth.

James 1:11–12 (CSB): Blessed is the one who endures trials, because when he has stood the test he will receive the crown of life that God has promised to those who love him.

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In an extraordinary act of self-surrender, the Creator and Lord of galaxies and chromosomes bound Himself within the limits of the Earth He formed between His fingers. His tangible presence in our sphere of perception carried the culmination of thousands of years of guidance, the ultimate demonstration that could be absorbed in every physical sensory way. Although He exists in a vastness incomprehensible to finite minds, He became part of the universe He held in the palm of His hand.

Humanity – souls bound into finite bodies, lifespans, and planet – has no tangible ability to expand or escape those boundaries. What we can see, hear, and feel is limited by the necessity of seeing, hearing, and feeling. He became part of us and returned to boundlessness to prove tonus once and for all that there is more.

On the sixth day after the dawn, the first moment of actual time, God filled a clay sculpture with His own breath, containing part of His own infinite identity within the boundaries of the measured universe. Despite our inability to sense it in any tangible way, we are in identity more than our physical limitations. When we surrender the insecurity inherent in such uncomfortable limits, when we acknowledge our true selves as part of God Himself, we return in a way to having access to more. We transcend the need to sense in order to know, and begin to know and experience what it means to be more than our limits.

When God became part of us, His vast nature couldn’t help but have an effect on our boundaries. Battles occurring outside of our physical limitations began to be visible, the voices of demons speaking through human mouths and the structure of natural phenomena defied. Because the full force of His infinity had been brought into finity, the foundations of the universe rocked and humanity caught an unignorable glimpse of more. As part of His infinite nature, we have less shocking but still indelible effects on our physical bounds. Our acknowledgement of and surrender to our infinite identity allows God’s vastness to shine through us in our character, our choices, our attitides, and our treatment of others. When we choose to be more, we fill Earth and all humanity with more. In our more, God is tangible again.

Glorious

The Lord came from Sinai and appeared to them at Seir; he shone on them from Mt. Paran and came with ten thousand holy ones, with lightning from his right hand for them. Deut. 33:2

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The shape of a throne with the appearance of a sapphire stone was above the expanse. There was a form with the appearance of a human on the throne high above. From what seemed to be his waist up, I saw a gleam like amber, with what looked like fire enclosing it all around. from what seemed to be his waist down, I also saw what looked like fire. There was a brilliant light all around him. The appearance of the brilliant light all around was like that of a rainbow in a cloud on a rainy day. This was the appearance of the form of the Lord’s glory. Ezekiel 1:26-28

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When I turned I saw seven golden lampstands, and among the lampstands was one like the Son of Man, dressed in a robe and with a golden sash wrapped around his chest. The hair of his head was white as wool – white as snow – and his eyes like a fiery flame. His feet were like fine bronze as it is fired in a furnace, and his voice like the sound of cascading waters. He had seven stars in his right hand; a sharp, double-edged sword came from his mouth, and his face was shining like the sun at full strength. Rev. 1:12-16

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Or do you think that I cannot call on my father, and he will provide me here and now with more than twelve legions of angels? Matt. 26:53

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Passage after passage describes God with the most beautiful, awe-inspiring images the human mind can conjure. He is easy to think about as an infant in a cradle, as a man traveling with his followers, even as a broken body drooping from a wooden cross. We can relate to those images, and they don’t cause us much disturbance. Though they serve an important purpose in our connection with God, they don’t do much to shock us out of our comfort zones.

The images used to describe God’s power are designed to do exactly that. Can you imagine cowering beneath a sky blotted out by a figure of light on a faceted throne surrounded by an army of angels ready for war? It’s almost beyond the capacity of our human minds to comprehend. Yet this incomprehensible majesty is ever present, just beyond our physical sight. And that majesty doesn’t war against us, but on our behalf. More than that, if we choose we can become a part of it, one of those gathered at the foot of the throne, partaking of the river that flows from it.

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Then he showed me the river of the water of life, clear as crystal, flowing from the throne of God and of the Lamb down the middle of the city’s main street. The tree of life was on each side of the river, bearing twelve kinds of fruit, producing its fruit every month. The leaves of the tree are for the healing of the nations, and there will no longer be any curse. The throne of God and of the Lamb will be in the city, and his servants will worship Him. They will see His face, and His name will be on their foreheads. Night will be no more; people will not need the light of a lamp or the light of the sun, because the Lord God will give them light, and they will reign forever and ever. Rev. 22:1-5

God is glorious. God’s realm is glorious. God’s army is glorious. And whether our eyes can see it or not, we are glorious in His hands. But only if we choose.

The Quarter

Photo by Becky Strike, French Quarter, New Orleans LA

Jean rested in the relative darkness of the tiled alley. The fan, incongruous against the ancient brick, did little to improve the sticky New Orleans heat pouring in from the open courtyard. Why couldn’t he have died somewhere cooler, he grumbled to himself.

He’d certainly had the opportunity. Born the younger son of the old city elite, he had craved adventure and excitement. The river had offered both, and his father had been only too glad to send his troublesome offspring north with the traders, away from the gambling halls that threatened the family fortune and reputation.

Ironic, then, that it should be fever from the delta swamps that took his life after all. Why he had been cursed to eternal boredom skulking in the darkness he had never learned. Two hundred and fifty years had brought bewildering change to the old city, at times almost its destruction. He would have welcomed that; perhaps he would have been released from his spectral prison.

He sighed at the sound of amplifiers whining on the other side of the wall. The courtyard still reflected the brilliance of the coastal sun through the dirty arched panes remaining overhead from some discarded doorframe. Apparently it was never too early for nightlife in the new old city. If only he could be part of it.

Water and Mud

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The images of flowing water and being washed clean dominate the scriptures, but one in particular is my favorite. Revelation paints a picture of a river rushing down from God’s throne through the roots of the tree of life to cleanse the world of a great curse. That image has always fired my imagination, and I sometimes can almost feel the water rushing through me carrying away every trace of unwanted filth.

There’s another image that often troubles me when I think of the great river, an ugly one not specifically painted in Revelation but one nevertheless seen in the behavior of mankind from the garden to now. It’s a person, unrecognizable under layers of grime, half buried in thick heavy clay. This person, upon seeing the flood coming, instead of rejoicing in the power that can free them from the mud and grime, begins to frantically use globs of their muddy trap to build a wall to block the water, growing dirtier and sinking deeper in the mire with every handful while salvation flows mere inches away.

In a way it’s an understandable reaction. We tend to be terrified of power held outside of ourselves, and our terror focuses our efforts on desperate self-preservation rather than reason. Perhaps, in the physical world, there is purpose in such a reaction, but spiritually it makes no sense. Christ’s sacrifice offers freedom from the mire of uncertainty and fear, a return to the purity of our origin and connection, peace unreachable from the muddy banks of human opinions and demands. Clinging to anything stemming from human concerns builds a wall between us and that cleansing, life-bringing flood.

The Self-Limited God

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The Everlasting. The Omnipotent. The I AM. The One without physical form, without physical space, without limits of any kind. This God, the Alpha and Omega, Creator of all things, took on the form of His creation. We repeat this often, and quote scriptures about it, but I wonder if we truly grasp the enormity of it.

Many religions have stories of deities who took on human form. These deities were either already limited in power and as flawed as humans, or they merely appeared human temporarily to deliver messages or enjoy themselves while retaining all of their power. Only this one is different.

He didn’t appear as an emperor or great warrior. He didn’t appear surrounded by prestige and wealth. He came as a baby. An actual baby, not the perverted vision of one. He arrived squalling and cold, blinded by even the dim light of a candle-lit clay-walled barn, flailing limbs not answering any but reflexive signals from the still-developing brain of a human infant. He could have exerted power to change that, but He didn’t.

He lived as a child, experiencing the bumps and bruises and frustrations of learning to accomplish tasks using human hands and feet. He submitted with respect and honor to the training given Him by human parents whose own understanding of His law was flawed and stumbling. He endured the privation that was part of the life of a poor working family, and faced the inevitable injuries and humiliations of apprenticeship in a manual trade. He could have exerted power to change all that, but He didn’t.

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He became a nomad without home or income, endured starvation, thirst, exposure, and fatigue. He wept and raged, prayed and laughed. He expended all of the energy His human body could contain on others, teaching and comforting. What power He chose to access as a grown man was also directed solely into others, even when hardship brought him to the brink of His human mortality. He became the subject of taunts, the target of prideful rage, and the focus of selfish demands. He could have exerted power to change all that, but He didn’t.

He was dragged to trial for crimes He didn’t commit, beaten and humiliated and tortured as nothing more than a pawn in a political game. Railroad spikes were pounded through the nerve bundles in His wrists and ankles before He was left to hang from a beam for hours, every breath an agony, His life slowly dripping away in the blood that oozed from wounds not allowed to close. He could have exerted power to change all that, but He didn’t.

Can you imagine what it must have been like? Can you imagine being limitless and yet trapped inside human limitations? Can you imagine being in that situation by your own choice alone? Can you imagine choosing such humiliation to rescue your creation that had rejected you, that would despise you for the poverty-stricken and unimpressive position you had chosen, that would still somehow be unable to ignore your truth and would hate you so much for it they would destroy your human life?

His body was wrapped in linen and hastily placed in a donated tomb. Because the Passover Sabbath had begun, the usual burial rites involving fragrant oils to preserve the body were delayed until Sunday. On Sunday morning, after having been released from His self-imposed limitations, as His human body showed signs of decomposition and decay, He once again stepped into it and changed it irrevocably. By that unfathomable action, He freed all of humanity as well. What a wondrous, unimaginable, selfless, self-limiting, unfathomable God.

Tuned

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An old hymn from 1758 begins with the words: “O thou Fount of every blessing, tune my heart to sing Thy praise.” These days we have all sorts of electronic gadgets and apps for instrument tuning, which takes some of the meaning out of the phrase. When I began taking music lessons, a few decades ago, I was given a simple tool called a tuning fork instead.

Instead of many notes, electronically replicated at the touch of a button, a tuning fork produces one. One clear, smooth, beautiful note from which all others can be discovered. Tuning requires much more work and a deeper understanding of music, but the process is actually quite simple. Strike the metal fork against a hard surface so that it vibrates with a perfect, pure, natural sound.

Similarly, God is the one note to which all others are tuned. There is nothing artificial about Him. Tuning our hearts to produce the same note requires work. Often it requires being struck again and again until we finally find the right note. Then when we have managed to match that first frequency, when the remaining cadence of our lives jars discordant against it, the even harder work begins to tune it all to a perfect scale from which the song of thanksgiving can be sung.

One day we will meet Him face to face, and all the voices of the faithful, tuned by trial, error, and dedication, will sing the new song of triumph and love.

Blessed

“Blessed are those who are persecuted because of righteousness, for the kingdom of heaven is theirs. You are blessed when they insult you and persecute you and falsely say every kind of evil against you because of me. Be glad and rejoice, because your reward is great in heaven.” Matthew 5:10-12

Being an outcast is not generally a situation we humans consider enjoyable. No one enjoys being insulted, assaulted, or ostracized. We consider a life at risk or taken to be a tragedy. God designed us with a strong desire to connect with each other and to protect human life at all costs. Because of this, we tend to have difficulty applying the above verses. What could possibly make being ostracized something to be celebrated? If we are designed with the need for each other, why would we be told the opposite made us so blessed as to be envied?

The answer lies in previously mentioned blessings: humility, mercy, purity, hunger for truth, the ability to grieve, and selflessness. All of these blessings are characteristics that bind us to one another, lead us to pursue what is best for each other. They are qualities that lead to action no matter the cost, which fact leads us to another blessed character trait, that of peacemaker.

The world tries to, and far too often succeeds in, convincing us that peace can only exist in the absence of conviction, that it is only gained by giving each other exactly what we want when we want it. The problem is that there is no such thing as absence of conviction. Selfishness is the conviction that I am more important than anyone else, and is the source of such confused behavior. Peace can never be achieved by promoting selfishness; though some goodhearted souls may destroy themselves by trying to be all things to all men, those with conviction of their own importance will never submit to anyone else’s desires. They will end in conflict with other equally selfish individual, and no one will actually be satisfied.

Humility, mercy, purity, hunger for truth, the ability to grieve, and selflessness are also conviction, but not in self. They are conviction that we have a Source, a purpose greater than any human desire, a mission to convict others of the same. This conviction of and reliance on the Source of all we are and have eliminates the desire for validation of self. It quiets the commotion the world seeks to create within us by focusing us on the Source of truth. It leads us to seek to create that same quiet focus, that peace, within other individuals.

We can all understand the blessing of such inner peace; the entire world seeks after it even if they misunderstand how to get it. But what does being a peacemaker have to do with persecution? The peacemaker, the holder of conviction in greater than self, doesn’t cater to human desires, their own or anyone else’s. Those with conviction of their own self-importance cannot comprehend that kind of strength. They live in fear and misery because they can never actually get everything that they want and thus will never possess the security to not care how others react to them.

The peacemaker, knowing this, accepts personal tragedy as unimportant. The peacemaker knows that only the Source of humanity holds what is best for humanity, that nothing treasured by the selfish can bring true security, that no attack from the selfish can break the quiet of truth. They rejoice, not because they suffer, but because they are unbroken. They rejoice in the conviction that the blessing is so much greater than the suffering. They rejoice because they have eternal peace.

Peacemakers

“…through him to reconcile everything to himself, whether things on earth or things in heaven, by making peace through his blood…” Colossians 1:20 CSB

“Don’t assume that I came to bring peace on the earth. I did not come to bring peace, but a sword. For I came to turn a man against his father, a daughter against her mother, a daughter-in-law against her mother-in-law; and a man’s enemies will be the members of his own household.” Matthew 10:34-36

The longing for peace is inherent in the human soul, so much that world-wide events are often driven by it. National policy is weighed against it. Societal movements claim it as a mantra. Interpersonal relationships are changed by it. But only once has true peace ever existed in the physical realm. Even then, those who possessed it did not recognize or understand it, and in pursuit of something different destroyed it.

What some people understand as peace is the idea of sameness. There are no differences of opinion, no cultural differences, no physical differences, no disorder, no struggle of any kind. This is not peace, it is laziness. Others think peace means there are no standards at all, that every person in the world must cater to the opinions of every other person in the world, while never being the same as anyone else in any way. This is also not peace, it is selfishness.

True peace is far different. It is not dependent upon other human beings or on the physical realm at all. It is rare, a treasure difficult to find, and fearsome to behold. Christ came to make it, but not between men. As the verses above make very clear, humanity often reacts violently when confronted with it.

So what does a peacemaker do if not smooth over all humanity’s ills? What is peace if not the absence of trouble on earth?

Peace is reconnection with God, a healing of the breach torn between Him and His children. It can only be found in Him, by returning our will and understanding to He who gave it. His character becomes ours, His strength becomes our conviction, His unchangeable truth becomes our unwavering courage to stand against lies.

Peace does not prevent trouble; on the contrary, peace is a beacon to those controlled by the author of confusion and father of lies. Most will choose not to surrender their own will, but like Cain will resent the consequences and grow to hate those who have what they rejected. They will see a sword but not the dragon , and in their willing ignorance they will attack the defender while the dragon burns them alive.

Most will, but not all. Some will see the strength and courage and be drawn to it. They will rise from the carnage and chaos to stand, taking arrows of their own. Some will fall, but more will rise to continue to fight for peace.

“Blessed are the peacemakers, for they will be called sons of God. Blessed are those who are persecuted because of righteousness, for the kingdom of heaven is theirs.” Matthew 5:9-10 CSB

Kingdom

Throughout history, people have defined themselves by physical boundaries. We have the God-given need to draw together for support, companionship, and productivity. Nations form based on common location, following leaders who either appeal to a common goal or claim power to exert their own desires on others. As goals change and leaders die, these boundaries change to create new nations, and new leaders rise along with them.

This is the nature of the nations of the earth. Like castles made of sand, the physical bonds chosen by humanity can be molded or erased at will. The waves of time, selfishness, and fear are capricious, and even the most elaborate of structures are not immune to their destructive power.

As humans we tend to cling to our castles in the sand. We work hard to build them, we put much of ourselves into them, we identify ourselves by them. This is not a bad thing, it is part of our nature. But because we do this, often we place far too much importance on human leaders and human systems. We begin to see humans as saviors, as gods to rescue us from ourselves. We insist that our systems of government are divinely favored, and that any opposition must be from the devil.

Only one physical nation ever had that distinction, and it’s time was divinely limited. When its purpose had been served, God Himself saw to its downfall. He spoke of its demise hundreds of times for hundreds of years before the fall, calling attention to the greater kingdom of which it was a part and which would only be clearly seen when it had dissolved.

The true kingdom, the only castle that can never be washed away, is not defined by boundaries on a map or by physical systems of government. The Law that governs it is not defined by laws encoded by humans. Its King will never die or be overthrown; He rules both life and death, and directs the footsteps of humans whether they will or no. The true kingdom is not and will never be a place; it is a bond between the heart of God and the hearts of those who recognize His eternal sovereignty.

The greatest of earthly leaders may possess that bond as well as the poorest citizen. The true kingdom is unique in that only within it will equality ever exist, yet it possesses greater diversity than any human system could ever achieve. Its citizens reside in every nation, it claims individuals from every culture and with every physical trait within human dna.

Unlike physical nations, its borders are immovable and unbreachable. The only way in is on the King’s Highway, and the road signs are planted in bedrock. Unlike earthly leaders, the King cannot be bribed or threatened. He simply IS. Unlike systems created by humans, its goals will never shift and no laws need ever be encoded. The King and the citizens are so closely bound that the citizens naturally embody the character of the King.

Because this kingdom is in the hearts of humans rather than defined by physical boundaries, every nation and every society is inevitably influenced by it. Nations and societies that seek that influence naturally encode systems that reflect its Law, and because the Law is the nature of the world God created those societies prosper. Nations and societies that seek to destroy that influence defy the Law of creation and inevitably fall. Sometimes, the former become the latter and fall; other times, the latter become the former and rise.

Whatever the sandcastle or the wave, the citizens of the kingdom have one responsibility. We must root ourselves in the bedrock and stand while sand and foam beat upon us and scour the beaches clean around us. We must become the foundation upon which the next castle may be built, the bulwark against the waves.

“All flesh is like grass, and all its glory like a flower of the grass. The grass withers, and the flower falls, but the word of the Lord endures forever.” I Peter 1:24-25 CSB