The Humiliation which we call 'Salvation'

            Like a landslide that has buried us beneath miles of dirt, our Father is drilling a hole down, down to us, to come get us, to liberate us and bring us back into the light of day. We could not create that hole. We could not escape the darkness or the miles and layers of thick mud. We could not find God. But he has found us. He latched himself onto us in covenant. He swore, by his own uncreated name, that his fate was now our fate. Though death we deserved, life we would be given…if we desired it.

            ‘Do you believe that I love you right now as you are? And more than you, do you believe that I am writing a Great Story, a story for all the world? A Story that it is for you and your brother and your sister’s good,’ our Father asks.

            ‘Do you see what I’ve done,’ we stammer ashamed, the mud caking our soul.
            Our Father smiles. But there is sadness in his eyes; compassion and hurt fill his face.
            ‘Oh my child, I see more than you will ever realize…But do you believe that I love you right now, as you are? Do you believe I want nothing more than to give you life within me; to make you my clean child once again?’
            ‘I want life, but I still want to be my own person. I think I can climb out of this hole myself. What if you ask too much from me?’ we protest from a mouth dripping of the fruit.
            ‘I will ask everything from you…but it will not be too much. And you can try to climb out, but you were not created that way. You were created one way, my child. And that means I must save you. You can only be your true self in me. Life is only in me. The old will be done away and we will speak of it no more. I will do a new thing in your soul. A new thing which rises from the earth like the swiftest dawn, never to set again. Trust me as you once did, when my grass and stars, sun and friendship awed you. Believe in me as you did when you were young. I do not come to enslave you. I come to set you free.’

            The first conversations of a new relationship look like this from a heart that wishes to be god, as is mine. Our Father has pronounced his eternal edict: Life shall win. Fortunately, and unfortunately, not all wish to live, for he only allows us to live one way. Or at least, not all can accept the only life there is, which is in the Father. And if pride keeps one from the only rest their soul can know, then our good Father will give them what they wish.

 

            He will not force them to live.

We, the remnant, are not the ones chosen so that God may reject others. All are chosen, but not all agree to the one life God can offer, life totally and unyieldingly in the Father. He drills down deep into the mud to save every one of us; but not everyone will allow themselves to be rescued, for to be rescued is humiliating. Not all can bear that humiliation.

In fact, only a child can bear the humiliation of God’s Kingdom—only a child like Paul.

            But it is through the deep, muddy humiliation of being rescued that life blooms.

Repentance is not another action that we take through our own strength. It is not attempting to change our behavior. That would be like a man in darkness suddenly realizing that he has been walking the wrong way. Now, he decides to turn around and try walking the other direction. But he is still in darkness! He will never get where he is trying to go, no matter how hard he tries. Even if he knows that he has been walking the wrong way (which is pretty difficult in the dark), if someone does not turn on a light for him, or at least lead him, he is just as hopeless as before. And furthermore, if he has always been in darkness, how does he even know where he actually desires to go? Why this importunate need to go anywhere? Unless there is in fact somewhere we all were made to arrive.

This is repentance by yourself.

This is what it is like to know that I am lost in Sin’s bog drowning the world, and to try and live a life of ‘goodness’, to try and turn around and walk back toward 'God.' I do not have a light to lead me. I cannot see where I am going. I did not even know that I was lost in Sin’s bog.

            True repentance is understanding that no matter how hard we try we will never measure up to the righteousness of our Father. We will never be able to know him or walk back toward him. We will never get rid of the infinite and puss-filled scars which blot our souls and seep outward into our lives. The mounds of dirt over our heads are miles deep. We will never be clean. We will never find him (Life perfected), because it is pitch black and we do not know where we are, nor where we are trying to go. We will never have the life we desire.

But true repentance is trusting that though we do not deserve it, our Father has given his grace to us. He has come down from his incomparable heaven, made himself visible like the Light we never knew was there, and joined us in the murky and disgusting mud. He, the true Light—perpendicular, splintered and red—will now walk beside us and lead us home to a place where we will be washed, cleaned, and given new clothes. He will lead us out of the darkness to a place where the Light never fades and he will heal our scars. We do not know how he is going to do it; but he says he is…and I trust him.

Perhaps, the Law given to the Israelites, which Christians like myself vehemently misunderstand and curse God for because of its coercive rigidity, was in fact our Father’s Light of Grace. Perhaps, it was given for our good—and its purpose was to expose us to the squalid reality of our situation.

If all we knew from birth was darkness, then we would have no idea this concept called light. But then that also means that we would have no idea what ‘darkness’ is either. We would just be what we always had been—completely inconsequential that what we had always been was in the dark. But when light is introduced to us, not only do we petrifyingly grasp this idea of ‘illumination’ but we also now fully understand this idea of ‘darkness’—which is what we always were.

When God gave us the law, he presented a picture of a way to live that was full of joy and peace and passion and grace. He presented us true Life, the kind of Life found only in our Creator, the only Life there is that can be labeled as Life. It was a bright Light. But the effect of this Light was that it revealed to us how deeply entrenched in the mud of our corrupted, sinful selves we actually were. We didn’t know we were that messed up until the Light of the Law was given to us. The Light of the Law illumined our world’s reality and because of it, we understood what God saw (and therefore what is truth) when he looks at us—darkness.

The Law was the Light for God’s rescue mission. And the issue with the Light is that we try and grab it and extricate ourselves from the mud. But that simply cannot be done. It’s not the purpose of the Light to save us. The Light of the Law was simply to reveal the reality of our situation—we were hopelessly stuck in Sin’s bog. But even if we cannot grasp the fullest truth, at least we grasp some truth. Even if we still cannot perceive the total imperative nature of the Law, at least we can perceive a little.

It exposed how mournfully lost we were. It revealed the devastating reality of Sin’s power. But it also revealed the beaming face of our God holding the Light of his Law who had come down to rescue us.

It revealed his beaming face…and he was smiling warmly.

            He had come down to rescue us.

It is a Great Story that is…and we are in it. We are the loved ones in the drama. But you will never hear those words, those incredible, liberating words until you stop trying to write them yourself (until you stop trying to grab the Light in his hands) and just let your Father, the Artist, the Rescuer, sing them unto you and serenade your soul as he created it to be serenaded. Rest in the song of our God.

Fall on sweet wetness, fall on

Wash the earth in destined embrace

Drench on sweet wetness, drench on

Thou tears from heavn’s pure face

Hold fast, dear teardrops, hold fast

Sink deep into skin, we may rest

Cleanse on, sweet teardrops, heal on

You sent by Love, all to bless