Thankful, Assured, and Advertising? That's it?

If we're saved by grace, why should we do 'good works'? 

This is the question that Ligon Duncan proposes to answer in this recent video for the Gospel Coalition's New City Catechism series (a series that sounds like a great idea to me!).

His opening point is, I believe, his best: "in salvation we are saved not only from the penalty of sin, but the power of sin."

It is unfortunate, in my opinion, that Duncan sets this notion aside in his summary of the three reasons growth and good works are important in the Christian life. These three reasons are, to express gratitude to God, to be assured of our salvation, and to draw others to the Gospel. This, it seems from what he says, is why God desires to free us from sin. For these three reasons. 

Is that really it? 

I believe that seeking salvation from the power of sin for its own sake, should be the central reason we pursue Christian growth. I believe Scripture is overwhelming in its claim that freedom from sin is one of the primary reasons Christ dies for us. John Piper gives a better account of the work of God in growing in holiness in this description of sanctification for the same video series.  But, something still seems missing. He still does not give a substantial reason for seeking sanctification in a way that makes sense. So much of the witness of Scripture seems missing here. 

 All too often, our attempts to explain the gospel begins with the doctrine of justification - how do we 'get in the club'? This ignores that the place from which we develop our doctrines is a Bible which is first and foremost a comprehensive narrative. Our 'justification' is one piece in a bigger puzzle that makes sense only when we understand the whole story. When we start with justification, questions about ethics and holiness get left to the side and have to be shoved in somewhere later with half-hearted motivators like 'gratitude' and 'advertising for the faith.' We are missing the 'big picture' of what salvation is about. 

When you look at the story of Scripture from cover to cover as a whole story, instead of just a sourcebook for rules and doctrines, this whole 'salvation' thing takes on a much more multifaceted meaning than we often get from overly-Reformed descriptions of salvation that focus more on God's judgement and His desire to preserve His holiness, than on His 'hell-bent,' relentless, desire to free His creation from the clutches of sin and death.

Paul, in Romans, is confronted with this same question about grace and works. If we are saved by grace, why should we stop sinning? What follows is a multiple-chapter elaboration on God's plan of salvation from sin and death.

In Romans 6:6 he says that we were saved,  "that we should no longer be slaves to sin." We have been united to Christ in his death and resurrection. In that mysterious and mystical relationship, we take part in His defeat of sin and the birth of new life out of darkness (read the whole chapter!). 

Paul continues to deal with some related issues, particularly pertaining to the Old Testament law. But he brings his thoughts to a glorious crescendo in chapter 8, describing how we are the beginning of God's imminent restoration of all creation: "We know that the whole creation has been groaning as in the pains of childbirth right up to the present time. Not only so, but we ourselves, who have the firstfruits of the Spirit, groan inwardly as we wait eagerly for our adoption to sonship, the redemption of our bodies" (8:22-23).  

This is why becoming a righteous and just person matters; because God came to redeem His creation and make it new. This is at the heart of His works in Christ. To ignore Christian growth and holiness is not just to ignore a chance to be grateful, a chance to be assured, or a chance to advertise for the faith. To miss this is to miss the whole point of salvation. 

I do not believe we can achieve Christian perfection in this life, nor does our salvation depend on it. We are saved by grace. Yes, absolutely. And if we are in Christ, we will be with Him in the new world. But I also believe that the work of  God in Christ is fundamentally about renewing the creation, and we are called to join in this renewal. We were not simply cleared from a death sentence and handed a ticket to heaven. We have been redeemed, renewed, recreated.   The God who made the heavens and the earth has begun that same creative process all over again right here in the middle of this world, through Christ, the firstfruits of the new creation. 

What does this mean for our daily lives? For our relationships? For our career plans? These are hard questions. But they are issues central to the questions we are exploring in this blog. How can we live more cognizant that we serve a God boiling over with love for His creation which has been tormented by sin, death, and decay? A God who can never fill us with 'too much love'? A God who wants us to treat everyone around us with the same self-emptying, boundless, love that He shows in His acts of redemption? How do we be and announce in word and deed the new creation? 

2 Corinthians 2:17: "Therefore, if anyone is in Christ, he is a new creation. The old has passed away; behold, the new has come."

I believe that Paul is here making an intentional allusion to an important doctrine expounded by the Old Testament prophets, particularly Isaiah, regarding God's plan to make a new creation: 

"See, I will create
    new heavens and a new earth." -Isaiah 65:17

Let us try and learn how to go forth to love and to serve, knowing that the Redeemer God who tramples over death by death and makes all things new, is with us. 


"But men, having turned from the contemplation of God to evil of their own devising, had come inevitably under the law of death. Instead of remaining in the state in which God had created them, they were in process of becoming corrupted entirely, and death had them completely under its dominion.

[...]

He saw how unseemly it was that the very things of which He Himself was the Artificer should be disappearing. He saw how the surpassing wickedness of men was mounting up against them; He saw also their universal liability to death. All this He saw and, pitying our race, moved with compassion for our limitation, unable to endure that death should have the mastery, rather than that His creatures should perish and the work of His Father for us men come to nought, He took to Himself a body, a human body even as our own. . . . Thus, taking a body like our own, because all our bodies were liable to the corruption of death, He surrendered His body to death instead of all, and offered it to the Father. This He did out of sheer love for us, so that in His death all might die, and the law of death thereby be abolished because, having fulfilled in His body that for which it was appointed, it was thereafter voided of its power for men." 

-St. Athanasius, On The Incarnation of the Word of God 

In Which N.T. Wright Answers My Question

I was thankful and overjoyed (giddy like a 13 year old girl at a Justin Bieber concert, actually) that a question I posed to New Testament Scholar N.T. Wright was selected for a blog interview of reader-generated questions at one of my favorite blogs: the blog of Rachel Held Evans.

I asked about the relationship between his views of eschatology and social ethics. Is the pursuit of justice for this world, full of people who will ultimately not be saved living on a planet yet to be fully redeemed, worthwhile. N.T. Wright is perhaps most well known for his book Surprised by Hope (which I cannot recommend highly enough, especially if you have never thought outside the 'Left Behind eschatology' box and never sat down to realize that the resurrection should be, actually, central of our faith and particularly our eschatology). My question was largely revolving around his particular eschatological views and why exactly doing good in this world, in this body, matters (as he contends it does).  You can read my full question and his full response at the original post at Rachel's blog, here.

One line from his response particularly struck me. Wright writes (I love saying that), "The point of justice and mercy anyway is not ‘they deserve it’ but ‘this is the way God’s world should be."

This reminds me of some thoughts I've written about previously, particularly on what I like to call 'the frivolousness' of God's love. [some have challenged me on this language so I say it with some tentativeness. read the original post on the subject, linked to just above, for a fuller explanation].  That is, noting the way that God shows love as an end in and of itself; risking that those whom He shows love to might still reject Him. Care for the other is central to His nature and is acted upon for its own sake. He shows love abundantly, toward all.

The Spirit is at work in the believer to make them like Jesus. As we share in His death and His resurrection life we become increasingly like Him. This is how the eschaton filters into our own day and age. This is how our future resurrected, glorified, selves begin to come to life in the here and now. To be like Jesus is to be frivolous with our love; to show love unequivocally. Showing mercy and justice to the undeserving - which is the significance of very central act of Jesus, His sacrifice - regardless of the response or consequences. Pursuing justice in the world around us matters, because it is in showing justice and mercy to all people unequivocally that we become like Jesus and the 'not yet' becomes a bit more 'now.'

I think the lesson to learn here is that N.T. Wright's particular eschatological views are not entirely necessary to believe that seeking justice is important... but it is better than some views in this respect. What is most important, however, is that we are called to follow Christ's example even though we don't have all the details figured out of why and what becomes of the good we do. We are called, first and foremost, to be obedient to what we know God wants us to do, and what we know is consistent with His character. We know that He is a God who desires to redeem creation and calls us to be a part of that work, in some way or another (this does distinguish us from some, particularly extreme dispensational, views). That is enough to tell us to get to work.

"Christ did not know measure in His love for people, — and in this love He lowered Himself in His Divinity to the point of being incarnated as Man and took upon Himself the sufferings of all. In this sense He teaches us by His example not of a measured limit in love, but rather an absolute and immeasurable surrendering away of oneself, by definition a laying down of one’s soul for others."

- Saint Maria Skobtsova of Paris

I highly recommend you check out the original post to see the question and answer in their fullness. There are some great questions about sexuality, reconciling God's justice and mercy, open theism, and others.

Thanks, Dr. Wright!  

The Cad at the Communion Table

We each possess a monster within us. But it is not a foreign monster. This monster looks so much like us that we are scared to look it in the face. It is the monster that desires nothing more than to exploit; to take, steal, lust, abuse.


I am not married, nor have I ever been anywhere particularly close to being married. I hope to be married one day. But in this desire for marriage, my inner-monster finds a safe way to sneak into the depths of my heart and life. My desire for companionship, sexual union, surrender to another, are easy paths for the exploiter to reside inside of me. Marriage becomes an idol. And then darker and more horrid things become even greater idols and marriage itself must be sacrificed. It's a clever trick. I become a monster and any hope of being a good spouse is abandoned at the altar of selfishness. A selfish person cannot be a good spouse. Worshipping the joys and desires of marriage undermine any hope of having that which I desired. 


I must learn to re-orient myself. 

We must kill lust and selfishness in order to have any hope of healthy marriages. We cannot become one flesh with someone when our only concern is how to feed the monstrous desires of our own flesh. Scripture is quite clear on the call to love your spouse's body as your own.

How can we give ourselves, or prepare ourselves to give, to a spouse in this way? 

We must first be a good spouse to our Lord. It is in that relationship that we most fundamentally learn to give and to give up our selfish desires.

Christ entered into this world to redeem a people for Himself; a people to be His bride: 

"And I will betroth you to me forever. I will betroth you to me in righteousness and in justice, in steadfast love and in mercy." -Hosea 2:19

"Then came one of the seven angels who had the seven bowls full of the seven last plagues and spoke to me, saying, “Come, I will show you the Bride, the wife of the Lamb.” -Revelation 21:9 

We must devote ourselves fully to Christ our bridegroom.

When we come to the Eucharistic table, to take communion, we are not merely remembering Christ's death. The Eucharist is a marriage feast. It is an anticipation of THE marriage supper of the Lamb. There, Christ becomes one flesh with His bride, the Church. We are in Him, and He is in us. This is no mere memorial, it is an anticipation. Much more than this, it is a consummation. We become one flesh with Him in His sacrifice. He gives all to us and we give all to Him. 

Yet here's the catch: we must give up all our desires other than Christ in order to be truly united to Him. We must be willing to give up all blessings and gifts and run after the Bridegroom wherever He would lead us. We must be ready to give up wealth, comfort, family, friendship, marriage, our safety, and our very lives.

He has given all for us and to be one flesh with Him. We must be ready to do the same.

This is not something that merely takes place in our heart. This is not a task for mere cognitive exercise (cognitive prayer and cognitive Bible study). We must pray with and in the midst of our living. We must learn Scripture by living it. Devoting ourselves to our spouse cannot be a mere cognitive exercise. What lover can be a worthy spouse by thoughts alone?

Christ has told us quite explicitly how to love Him, how to bless Him: we must keep His commandments, and we must love 'the least.'

What spouse would let their beloved wander naked and hungry in the streets? To let their spouse be bound in brothels? To die in the wars of the power-drunk? All these are our beloved, our Christ. This is where we become His bride: in the dark places of the world where He has gone before us to suffer with the suffering.

We are called to trade our inward-focused motion to an outward one; actively blessing and loving our spouse. I believe this is necessary to become a good spouse. We should look for our partners to be those who have been running ahead into darkness to care for the suffering, to work for the Kingdom. If I am to marry I hope to find someone in the trenches with Christ. Someone who, like Christ, is to be found with the suffering; where we love other bodies above our own, because we are devoted first and foremost to the body of Christ.

But in this journey, we may be called to abandon everything.

To gain your life you must lose it. And there is no guarantee of getting back everything you gave up.

But you will gain a feast. A marriage feast with the Lamb.  A marriage, a home, an eternal Love.

Lord, teach us to love You. Teach us to see You in the suffering humans around us. Let us learn to turn aside our selfish desires and the comfort we find in being inward-focused.  You call us out. You call us to love you with our whole selves. To be one flesh with you. To be married to you. To be your beautiful bride. Lead us to the table to break bread with you. Let us drink wine with you. Let us live this marriage feast in our daily lives and work - let us celebrate the Eucharist in giving ourselves away to the needy. That is the marriage feast we are called to partake in. That is the holy consummation of our marriage to you. We suffer with You, we walk into death with You, knowing that You have gone ahead and before us, and came out victorious out the other side. We will always be together. Transform this whore at Your communion table into Your lovely bride. 

Amen. 

Update 6/10/13:    An apt quotation that Miroslav Volf posted on Facebook today: 

"A Christian lives not in himself, but in Christ and in his neighbor" -Luther

Peace and Principalities

Many in the early Church were explicitly against war and violence, to a degree that might shock many contemporary Christians. The relationship between our faith and government, violence, war, defense, are all tricky issues. They are issues that I have been wrestling with a great deal lately, and which I have been researching (at least in terms of early Christian views on these issues). Scholars disagree on the nature of this pacifism in the early Church. Some argue that they were more concerned about the idol worship associated with being in the army than a condemnation of violence per se. I am quite  convinced by George Kalantzis's (of Wheaton College) new book (Caesar and the Lamb) arguing, to the contrary, that an overwhelming majority (practically unanimous) of the Fathers were solidly against violence itself; they were rather explicit about it.

Regardless, these issues are tricky. It was much easier to be a pacifist when Christianity was a minority religion in a pagan empire. When Christians gained political clout and eventually became the majority, these questions became a lot more complicated. So, like I said, it's tricky.

I don't presume to give an answer, but a few reflections.

Many in the early Church held to a deep sense of hope that I think is sometimes lacking in the Church today. While living in an empire that persecuted them, tortured them, killed them, and that operated on war and power and greed, the early Church had hope because they knew that they were the living body of the resurrected Christ. Christ had died and been raised again. This was a solid fact to stand upon. A solid hope in the midst of all the darkness. A brand new world was breaking forth into the old one, and everything was different now. The power of God had been unleashed on earth and death itself had been turned upside down. Carl F. H. Henry put it well: "The early Christians did not say ‘look what the world is coming to!’ but ‘look what has come into the world!’" 

When it came to their views of violence, they were wildly full of hope. Violence and death are not parts of the world God intended; and they had hope that God can and would put all things to right. A hope grounded in the resurrection. Miracles can happen. They have happened. Things can change. 

Perhaps we have learned some valuable lessons and gained a wise caution, by having a bit more reserve about how imminent we understand the Kingdom to be, than many early Christians possessed.  Seeing the Kingdom as too imminent (or imminent in the wrong ways) has led to some great atrocities. Many of early Christians (up until the 3rd century or so) believed the end was right around the corner. We no longer think this way and often talk about the way things 'must be' until the end comes. There is some wisdom here, but this can often be rather fatalistic in a way that I don't think is Biblically warranted. 

There needs to be some balance. But I think we could use a healthy dose of their hope. 

We may decide that violence is a necessary evil until the end is actually here. We may not be able to agree with many early Christians' almost entirely unequivocal pacifism. But there is something from them to learn. If we decide to believe that war is a necessary evil, let us never forget that it is still an evil, and that we are given power in Christ to pursue a different way. We must be spokespeople for peace, and for hope. 

I will leave you with a paraphrase of the words of Origen (3rd century). Origen had seen a lot of violence. His father was violently persecuted while Origen was but a boy. His spiritual mentor was also killed, along with many others in the city in which Origen was living. Yet, he remained hopeful about a different way to live in the world. 

A man by the name of Celsus had written a long treatise condemning Christianity on a variety of levels. We don't have the original document - we only know that Origen responded (extensively) to Celsus several years later, and his response has been preserved. This is my paraphrase of a part of that response: 

"Celsus has argued that we are detrimental to the wellbeing of society, because we refuse to fight in the emperor's armies. 'If everyone became Christians,' he argues, 'the empire would collapse because there would be no army.'  

Celsus, don't you understand? We are actually the best soldiers the emperor has. We take up arms with something much more powerful than a sword. We wage war with prayer. We do battle against the forces of evil which are the true and ultimate source of violence. We pray for peace. We pray for the advancement of the Gospel of peace to all people. And we live and pray knowing that our God has already won the victory."

Our battle is not against flesh and blood. It is not ultimately against nations, or religions, or even ideologies or 'extremists.' We may disagree with Origen and decide there is a time and a need to physically resist evil actions and protect the innocent.  There are a lot of good reasons to come to this conclusion. But we must never confuse that type of war with the greater war, against powers of evil and sin. These are powers that cannot ultimately be defeated by the sword, but by love; a love that is willing to die for the wellbeing of others, including enemies. That's the power in us, that's the hope we have, because it has already been accomplished. Love incarnate in Christ gave everything and death was destroyed. 

He who lives by the sword shall die by the sword. He who dies by the sword shall live, and shall conquer. Indeed 'more than conquerers.' 

 We live in the hope of the resurrection, the hope that there is a power greater than the sword that will, and can, beat spears into pruning hooks. That is the power of God. 

"For when we, so large a number as we are, have learned from His teachings and His laws that it is 'not right to repay evil for evil;' that it is better to suffer wrong than to be its cause, to pour forth one's own blood rather than to stain our hands and conscience with the blood of another: the world, ungrateful as it is, has long had this benefit from Christ by whom the rage of madness has been softened and has begun to withhold hostile hands from the blood of fellow beings."

-Arnobius of Sicca (4th century)  

In other words, Arnobius writes: 'you should be grateful for our example of submissiveness to suffering and our non-violence. It's changing the world.' Perhaps he's a bit naive. Perhaps he's too much of an idealist. But I think we could use a bit of this hope and conviction.

The Long Dawn: A Call for Prayer

"Then Samuel said,

Do you think all God wants are sacrifices—
    empty rituals just for show?
He wants you to listen to him!
Plain listening is the thing,
    not staging a lavish religious production.
Not doing what God tells you
    is far worse than fooling around in the occult.
Getting self-important around God
    is far worse than making deals with your dead ancestors.
Because you said No to God’s command,    he says No to your kingship."
-1 Samuel 15:22-23, The Message

Let me tell you a truth: I am not a good person. Some of you are not surprised by this comment, others of you might think I'm being too critical. Bare with me.

This week I was reminded again, in various ways, of my own selfishness. I lusted, I hated, I discriminated, and I valued myself higher than others. And those were just the sins I kept out of the view of the world, forgetting, of course, the more public displays of my own inequities.

I am not good because I make my view of the world about me. That's self-centered and narrow minded. My view of the world needs to be about so much more than just me, my successes and my failures.

Too often, I try to hide up my inadequacies with religious words or actions. Today, I want to back away from any attempt to write a profound post but simply to ask you to pray with me. God does indeed invite us into relationship with Him and prayer is how we consummate that relationship.

So, today (and on many subsequent days), I invite you to enter with me into the Kingdom of God here on earth. . . What I like to call the Long Dawn and Kyle likes to call the first building blocks of the New Kingdom. Let us enter into the Kingdom by asking God to be with the dying and hurt in this world.

For the families of those killed in the Bangladesh factory collapse, may You, God of those in pain, reveal Yourself and Your love.

Lord, have mercy.

For the family and friends of the British soldier hacked to death in London, God, be present in their suffering.

Lord, have mercy.

For Goma, Democratic Republic of Congo, for the ongoing violence there and for the promise of peace in that region.

Lord, in Your mercy, hear our prayer.
 

Last Things and the Modern Age: Reflections on Re-Visiting the Alma Mater

Psychoanalyzing one's theology can be illuminating.

There are days that I wonder if Freud and certain other modern atheist psychologists were on to something. Some have followed the trend of reducing man's religious impulse to naturalistic explanations - often some sort of unmet emotional needs, or at least contending that they develop to as serve some other practical purpose for individuals and/or societies. There are days that I might seem like one suffering from a religious neurosis. There are days that I am quite ironically aware that my theological tendencies or opinions can often form under the need to comfort myself, or in order to fulfill feed some psychological deficiency. 

This is perhaps especially true of the direction my thoughts often turn as I consider the eschaton; that is, my thoughts on the last things, the end of the world, and the nature of the Kingdom of God.

The modern world, as many have noted, is hyper-mobile. In pre-modern societies, it was common that an average individual would spend their entire life in a single community. Their relationships, significance, and identity all revolved around and existed in this one place that remained in some comparatively significant degree, intact. In the modern world, we are constantly in motion. Alvin Toffler writes brilliantly about this in Future Shock, in which he considers the consequences of the hyper-mobility of the modern age: relationships are always transient, identity is constantly fluid and infinitely reconstructable because we are constantly moving from one place to another and so is everyone around us, etc. We're constantly coming together and breaking apart, and expecting most things in our life to be temporary. We guard ourselves against intimacy, rootedness, or having a solid identity. 

I don't like this arrangement very much. I hate change. I hate goodbyes. I hate transience. These can be relatively normal and expected feelings of mine. I don't think this hyper-mobility is terribly healthy or quite 'natural,' and to be discontented with it is understandable.  On the other hand, however, this situation is somewhat unavoidable and must be adapted to in some meaningful way. And living in fear of or constantly at war against change is harmful (and always has been). I am self-aware enough to realize that my disdain of change can go too far, and that I can have real attachment issues by which I can cling too tightly to the past. 

and sometimes my psyche and all its deficiencies, I nowadays quite readily acknowledge, likes to play with my theology. 

I am currently visiting my alma mater, one year after my graduation. On this visit, I watched yet another graduation take place. Watching other friends graduate and see them gearing up to spread around the world and see the end of their temporary time together was painful in and of itself; both via empathy and because many of them are my friends. They have been many miles away from me throughout this year, of course, but having them all here in one place was comforting, with some notion in the back of my mind that back there things are continuing on in some sense like they used to (read: as I had lived it). But more than this, it was even more painful to watch and see it serve as a catalyst to re-living my own graduation and all the emotions that came with it. To put the icing on the cake, there is also the renewed realization that little by little, my visits will become less frequent as those I know leave, and others I have never met replace them. Not to mention that the dispersion of my own cohort becomes ever wider. Some, thankfully, will be moving closer to me in coming years. Some are going far away. 

In short, I was very quickly a basket-case of emotions, bemoaning change in all the many ways it came to torment me. 

Even though we would laugh about the inane over-usage of the politically-correct term 'community,' thrown around at my alma mater, having since met people who went to different sorts of schools does give me a renewed appreciation for the sorts of seemingly unique relationships and dynamics that are/were formed at my alma mater because of the sort of place it is. My school was small, and drew students of particular tendencies, qualities, and interests (as I guess all schools do - but a Christian liberal arts school has a somewhat consistent aura that fits me better than other contexts would). There was some sense of consistency - seeing more or less the same people on a regular basis. Most people were known/recognizable to most others and as I result, I had some sense of feeling known. Many in the community had long roots there, and I was constantly meeting grandchildren of my old family friends, meeting professors who taught a parent or an aunt or uncle, etc. I often walked over the bridge where my grandparents got engaged. We were small enough to have a deep sense of sharing in a great many of the same experiences; many inside jokes, pains and joys experienced together, stories about peers and professors that we could all feel some sense of attachment to. And, most importantly, I formed many deep and extremely meaningful relationships during those years.

We all knew that this arrangement was going to be temporary. That we were living there in order to establish ourselves for our futures; which could take us any number of different directions. But the sense of place, belonging, intimacy - yes, community - and its relegation to the past is, quite naturally, painful. One of the relatively unique pains of the modern world.

Of course, I have realized, it's not just this mobile world in which things change. Even a life lived in a consistent, pre-modern, community will be filled with various vicissitudes (nice alliteration, eh?). There is a great deal of truth to the realization we attribute to Heraclitus: you never step in the same river twice. This world is inherently transient. Nothing is permanent. Even those things we hold as whole memories ('my time in high school') are nothing but a long list of changes with perhaps certain regularities we can point to to give it some sense of completeness, sometimes perhaps rather arbitrarily. When you put the present under a microscope, you realize how unique are the particularities of each specific moment. These things we feel nostalgic about are, in some sense, mental constructions. A formulated sense of permanence that didn't ever exactly exist quite in that way. 

In a vast sea of different theological views opinions about the end of the world, all with long names, I find myself jumping around a few different camps. I tend to believe, quite strongly, that the resurrection of Christ is intended to announce that the New Creation long promised by Yahweh has now begun to exist and grow right here in the middle of this old world. The Jews were expecting a resurrection at the end of history. For Jesus to be resurrected in history was the announcement that the new world had started right now. He was the first fruit of a new creation that we take part in. In Him we are a new creation; the old has gone the new has come. We are being made new day by day. This new world, among many other things, is one of restored intimacy and community. It also provides a certain sense of place, for we are being formed for life in a city (a New Jerusalem). 

N.T. Wright has made this powerful statement: 

"What you do in the present—by painting, preaching, singing, sewing, praying, teaching, building hospitals, digging wells, campaigning for justice, writing poems, caring for the needy, loving your neighbor as yourself—will last into God's future. These activities are not simply ways of making the present life a little less beastly, a little more bearable, until the day when we leave it behind altogether (as the hymn so mistakenly puts it…). They are part of what we may call building for God's kingdom.” 

And here's when my psyche waltzes in, to play speculative theology.

I believe that the fellowship we share in this life are among the first building blocks of the New Kingdom. In some (limited) sense, we are literally entering into Kingdom, eschatological, life right now through our relationships in Christ. I wonder if this might also stretch beyond just people, but also places and experiences and times. 

I wonder if our Christian communities, friendships, and the senses of place that we build around these fellowships have some part to play in the Kingdom. And one day, everything old will collapse and all the transient pieces of the Kingdom will no longer be hidden and ephemeral, but NOW. Things are not merely to be wiped away and started anew - the new is already here and there is a clean relationship between the new in the now and the new in the future. Our intimacy, community, relationships, are the beginning of heaven coming to earth; the descent of the New Jerusalem. 

I am tempted to believe believe that, in a real sense, my time at my alma mater (and in some ways, 'parts' of every moment I have lived in Christ) is the beginning of the new world. Those moments, those places, those memories, those relationships, will in some real way be there because they have already begun to be part of the coming-here, which is eternal. Maybe we will visit the 'places' that form part of our life of the New Kingdom in our pasts. There is a certain eternal permanence (which is at the same time pregnant with infinite possibility for newness) hidden, mixed up, in the things that when we put under a microscope are nothing but a long list of changes and minutes passing.

In our hyper-mobile world, the promise of the eschaton is particularly poignant in its promise to fulfill the things our transience has taken ever more irrevocably from us: true intimacy, community, permanence, a substantial and lasting sense of place and belonging and roots. Perhaps nostalgia is a particularly modern form of 'longing' for heaven. A particularly modern form of desire, like the 'stabs of joy' Lewis wrote of. I recall when I first read about this notion of Lewis's being struck with a sense that I knew exactly what he was talking about. I believe many have felt the same. Lewis often described feeling these stabs of joy in certain aesthetic moments. And indeed, I have too. But I often find (especially as I live through one of the most transient periods of my life - young adulthood) that these longings appear most often in an intense and piercing desire for the 'past.' Nostalgia. 

I still believe we can live forever 

You and I we begin forever now

Forever now

Forever

I still believe in us together

You and I we're here together now

Together now

(Switchfoot: Where I Belong)

We (or at least I) desperately grasp on to whatever ephemeral moments of Kingdom-life we can hold on to. That last coffee with a friend before she leaves without any clue when you will see her again. That moment you catch yourself dozing and wondering if your old roommate and friend is across the room, sleeping, like he used to be. Cueing up that piece of music you performed when you were in the college choir. Trying to catch a glimpse of a tree blowing in the sunny spring wind, reminding you of a myriad of beautiful spring moments spread across the years - playing in my backyard as a kid, sitting at my desk writing poetry in high school, napping out on the quad in the middle of finals week. That gathering back at your old favorite restaurant with your high school friends, while you're all back home for the holidays. Taking an extra long stare at that shirt which reminds you of the one your dad used to wear when you were a kid and would go outside to wash the car with him.

 In these 'Gatsbian' moments "... we beat on, boats against the current, borne back ceaselessly into the past." (Fitzgerald, in The Great Gatsby);  trying desperately to hang on to the past, and find a fulfillment for the nostalgia.  

As stated above, senses of nostalgia are based upon partially romanticized versions of the past - attaching a sense of permanence and place to things that are really somewhat arbitrary and ultimately transient; piles of particularly prevalent particulars. But maybe our senses of place which largely form our senses of nostalgia represent a longing that will have some very literal fulfillment in the end. Maybe the things, places, sights, sounds, memories, of our past will in some way or another be part of our eternal Home. Nostalgia is a longing for reunion, for intimacy, for so many things that 'once were' yet are at the same time nothing that this world can fully satisfy until time as we know it has collapsed in the final death of death. Nostalgia for something that sort-of-has-existed, but which is also still yet to come. A going-back that sometimes I mistakenly believe I can clasp and possess, but is actually only to be found in going forward. That's the trickiness of nostalgia, I guess. You don't feel it until things have passed, and that which you long for is somehow more substantial and more permanent than it was when it was the present. It is at once a longing for the past, and a future permanence that is both 'old' and 'new.' Somehow past, present, and future. 

Going forward will feel a little bit like going backward. 

Maybe Plato was onto something. 

And here we get to the long and short of it.  If nothing else, these ideas helps me with my attachment issues. They will get me through another night with tears at the brim - thinking of that afternoon I said those last goodbyes on graduation day. It provides a way to deal with the memories that find themselves rolling down my cheeks and landing in a wet spot on my shirt.

 I need to something to hold on to in order to believe that this pain means something, and that it will be healed. Maybe an individual of greater faith than I can be more at peace in trying to desire Christ above desiring my memories and my time with my friends. To have a faith that is ready for anything, and to be satisfied in all things in Christ. And I strive for that; to be satisfied in knowing that whatever the end will look like, it will be good. But this pain wants them and that time and that place. And I need to believe that this pain is from a hole that they, along with and through Christ, will fill. I don't think this has to be a contradiction, but maybe my desires need further sanctification since they are, after all, suspiciously similar in content to the neuroses of my own psyche. But I need them tonight. 

There is work to be done and we must go about it somehow, striking a balance between stoic peace and passionate longing, being in peace no matter what happens and yet allowing ourselves to ardently hope to find whoever may be counted among your 'you's; the 'second-persons' in your life; the loved ones who have been right in front of you at various stages along these rivers and these roads: the 'you' of you, that you are longing to one day reach again in a state of permanence, the desire for which I suspect is at the root of our nostalgic longings.  It is good to maintain connections with old friends, enjoy the past, celebrate the good, make friendship and community a priority. We should be cultivating healthy longings for heaven - healthy senses of nostalgia. We must be cultivating in ourselves a love so rich and so intimate that the 'not yet' of this life indeed causes us pain as we wait for what is to come. And yet we must continue on; trying to remember that we are pilgrims, following Christ from one station to the next, trying to be contented in Him and at peace with where He has us. Trying to also live in the Kingdom-life that is right in front of us: loving those with us, relishing the communities we have in this season. We can long, we can desire, we can relish and encourage closeness and community and intimacy. But we can also follow Christ into the transience with hope. I hope some day I can be better at doing so. 

Until then, my heart hangs onto whatever semblance of a theological explanation and source of comfort that I can pull together. 

a year from now we'll all be gone

all our friends will move away

and they're going to better places

but our friends will be gone away

nothing is as it has been

and i miss your face like hell

and i guess it's just as well

but i miss your face like hell

been talking bout the way things change

and my family lives in a different state

and if you don't know what to make of this

then we will not relate

so if you don't know what to make of this

then we will not relate

rivers and roads

rivers and roads

rivers 'til i reach you

(The Head and the Heart: 'Rivers and Roads')

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