All the Way Home--May 4, 2022

All the Way Home--May 4, 2022

"[Jesus] will also strengthen you to the end, so that you may be blameless on the day of our Lord Jesus Christ. God is faithful; by him you were called into the fellowship of his Son, Jesus Christ our Lord." [1 Corinthians 1:8-9]

The same God who took us by the hand at the start of our life's journey will be the One to bring us to our destination--and will be there every step of the way as we go.  That really is amazing.  I suppose it's not for nothing that the old hymn calls it "amazing grace" that has "brought me safe thus far, and grace will lead me home."  Or like the old song by Albert Goodson puts it, "We've come this far by faith, leaning on the Lord; trusting in his holy word, he's never failed us yet."

Of course, it's easy to look back in hindsight and see how we've been brought to the present safely. Anybody who has ever read the old "Footprints" poem knows by now its well-worn punchline about being carried through the hard times of the past and realizing that Jesus had been with us all along. The really hard thing, I'm convinced, is to lift our eyes from where our feet are standing now and into an unknown future.  It's scary to look ahead.  It's scary exactly because we don't know what's coming.

One of the things we have to come to terms with in the life of faith is that we aren't promised that we'll get to know the things that will come along the way between now and the end of the journey.  We aren't promised a foreknowledge of when the dangers or heartaches will come, and we certainly aren't guaranteed that they won't come in the first place.  As much as we might want it that way (and as much as so many huckster televangelists sell their books claiming it), God hasn't promised us lives free of struggle, pain, or trouble as rewards for being good little believers.  Every morning we head out into a world that is full of meanness and tragedy, and every morning we send our kids and grandkids into that same world as well--not with some bulletproof armor or shielding to make them invincible, but vulnerably, and susceptible to that danger.  

The promise Paul gives us here, that "God is faithful," is not an insurance policy that there won't be a traffic accident or a cancer diagnosis.  The assurance that Jesus will strengthen us "to the end" doesn't mean there can't be a shooting at the school or a fire in the house. I can't tell my kids that no one will attack them at school because their skin is darker than most of the other kids--in fact, I have to send them into a reality where I know the opposite happens regularly to their older peers.  I can't promise my children that their faith in God, or my role as a "religious professional," will shield them from the meanness and rottenness of the world.  That was never the promise. The promise is of God's faithfulness--and that God's faithfulness will be enough to bring us home.  But between here and home there are plenty of steps we can't see clearly yet.

This is one of those realizations I think we need to be clear about, because I think it remains awfully tempting to slide into some kind of magical thinking where our Christian faith exempts us from the scary stuff of life.  I can recall a number of conversations just a few months back when Russia's invasion of Ukraine began, where folks were troubled at the idea that this could "happen to people who are Christian"--like the unspoken assumption was that bad things like wars don't happen to Christians. (For that matter, not only do Christians sometimes find their countries invaded, but sometimes autocrats hijack Christianity to justify their invasions, too--that's the pernicious danger of "Christian" nationalism and the way it tries to baptize empire-building.)  It's common to hear the same underlying magical thinking when someone gets a difficult diagnosis, or sees a grown child take a wayward path, or loses a job.  Some impulse makes it tempting to say, "But they're Christians--shouldn't Jesus spare them having to go through this stuff?  Shouldn't life be easier for people who follow Jesus, if he's promised to have our backs?"  And to be honest, the answer Paul gives here is, "No."

No, we aren't exempt from the tragedy and brokenness of the world.  No, we are not impervious to the meanness and violence of the world.  No, we are not given a pass on the hard stuff of life as we stroll along toward heaven--but rather, if anything, we are called all the more into the pain of the world around us as the presence of Christ.  What we ARE promised is that the same Lord Jesus who is accompanying us all our lives long will also renew our strength as we face all the difficult and painful stuff of life.  And that very promise itself--the promise of strengthening--only makes sense if we are going to be enduring things that would otherwise sap our strength.  You don't tell someone who is lounging on some beach for vacation, sipping a tropical drink without a care in the world, "I'll be here to give you strength!"  The ones on the beach chairs don't need "strength"--probably just another mimosa.  You promise to lend strength and encouragement to someone who is going to need it.  So if the promise we get from Jesus is to give us strength all along our life's journey until we arrive at our home destination, then it sure seems to be Jesus' assumption that we'll need that strength as we go.  Jesus seems to assume that we'll be facing things that demand strength.  Jesus seems to take it as a given that we need the assurance of his faithful presence with us.  So yeah, we need to be prepared to enter into the difficult stuff of this world--but we do so knowing that we are given the presence of Jesus, the very presence of the embodied God-with-us, who gives us what we need as we put one step in front of the next.

Yes, we will be called upon to head back into a world full of meanness and tragedy, and it is the kind of journey that would drain us to exhaustion and despair if we were doing it alone.  But because we are going with Jesus, who has been with us from before we were aware of it and who promises to stay with us all the way home, we find the strength to answer the rottenness of the world with goodness one day at a time.  

Today's the day we've been given to it in.  Let's go answer evil with good.  Let's go answer pain with mercy.  Let's go answer the world's profound loneliness with the promise that Jesus is with us.  Let's go.

Lord Jesus, give us the strength for this day's leg of the journey, and assure us that you are bringing us all the way home.