There will come a day for each of us when we will be spoken of in the past-tense. What we have made or not made of our lives will be declared. The quality or lack thereof of the person that we were will be known to all. If your life were to wind down this week, what do you suppose would be your legacy? How would you be described in the past-tense?
Would it go something like this: “She rented really great movies and always watched each one to the very end.” Or, “McDonald’s is really going to miss that guy – He was one faithful customer… Man, what he could do with a Big Mac!” Or how about: “Yep, that dude could fool around on his computer for hours. I think he had like 500 “friends” on Facebook.” “He was gifted when it came to taking a nap.” Or even, “If you ever wanted to know the scoop on someone, she was the person to go to. She was always so incredibly generous with her gossip.’
These past-tense testimonials are horrifying to consider. Such undersized lives, where the person needed little more than a brain-stem to get by, is a very depressing thought. Go with that for a moment. Be depressed. Drink it deep. I am shooting for wholesale dissatisfaction from the get-go.
Have you ever mulled over the words disillusioned or disenchanted? We tend to think of both of these as negative terms. I actually see them as liberating words. Why? It all has to do with the prefix, “dis.” Generally speaking, the meaning of this prefix is: “lack of, the opposite of, or away.” Any one of them will do for the point I would like to make. To “lack” illusion is not a bad thing. To be a person who is, “the opposite of” enchanted seems pretty good as well. What seems untenable is to walk around in a perpetual state of illusion and enchantment. That sounds a whole lot like black magic.
When a person asks one or more of the following questions, he or she is taking a step toward liberation. The questions go as follows: “Is this all there is to life?” “Why I am I taking up space on this planet?” “Am I created for something more than movie night, Big Macs, naps, Facebook and gossip?” “What is my purpose?”
If you have a pulse, you have had one of those thoughts. Chances are, you didn’t linger too long on any one of them because they appear so dark and foreboding. In our culture, the nearest TV remote, computer, bottle of hooch, newspaper, romance novel, restaurant, or vacation can temporarily cure us of the blues associated with these searching questions. In other words, the drift back into enchantment and illusion are within easy reach. And reach we do…much as a drug-addict reaches for a fix.
It was not always so. Previous cultures, (and many cultures today, as we shall see in future blogs) lived without the anesthetizing temptations available to us. They were less trusting of and dependent on mundane pastimes and amusements to get them through. They in fact found purposeful lives because they stayed focused on the big questions of: “Why am I here?” “What is my purpose?”
When we ask the question, “Why am I here?” there is a metaphysical component to it. The question belies an unspoken understanding that we are, in fact, created. Or, at the very least, we are pro-created. Either way, we recognize that somehow, in the words of Tony Campolo, we are that: “one sperm out of millions that made it.” We cannot escape the thought that we are special, that we are destined, and that we are unique. Our fingerprints bear witness of that unassailable fact. (Go ahead; take a moment right this second and just stare at your fingertips. Better yet – use a magnifying glass. I predict a holy shudder). And, when we linger on that thought for even a moment, we gain an enormous sense of stewardship, some inkling that the universe is anxiously waiting for us to take a step toward our created purpose.
If you believe, as I do, that we are each created by a Creator who intimately knows us, then these questions become less rhetorical. We find - if we can clear our head and hands of lesser pursuits - first a hint, then a whisper, then a sketch, and ultimately, a life that is full of wild possibility and creativity. The Creator has made us to be co-creators of His good purposes. It is a standing invitation with a shelf-life that lasts until we each draw our final breath.
What hinders us from pursuing our purpose? One of the most universally agreed upon culprits is fear. We like predictability. We are risk averse. We do not like someone rearranging the furniture of our lives and messing with our carefully constructed sanctuaries of banality. Now, I could go on for some time about fear, but I think it pales in comparison to the biggest villain of all. Pardon for a moment this theological scamper, but I believe, etymologically and philosophically that our biggest problem is sin.
SIN? Are you kidding me? Nope. The Greek word used to describe “sin” in the New Testament is: “hamartano”, an archery term that means: “to miss the mark and not share in the prize.” It gets better (or worse depending on your point of view). As so often happens with Greek words, they are built from an antecedent word which gives us even greater insight. Such is the case with this word. “Harmartano” goes back to the word, “meros” which means: “share, allotment, section of land, coast, unique craft, or portion.”
When I first mentioned sin as our principal problem, most of you probably thought I was referencing things that are considered “naughty.” Yes, sin is no doubt naughty. The list of things we should and shouldn’t do is daunting. We all have a sin problem. But, what I find really striking is that the word used to describe sin speaks mostly about a life that just flat misses out on the issue of purpose. According to the etymology of the words themselves, sin means that we have missed the target, our share, our allotment, our section of land, our unique craft, or our portion. The biggest sin of all turns out to be when we fail to see the answer to the big, metaphysical question raised earlier: “Why am I here?” And, the reason we often hesitate to linger on that question is because it exposes our sin problem.
If you have read this far, you are either nodding in agreement or you are kicking the dog. (I.e., I thought I was going to get a nice Norman Vincent Peale message and instead he went all Billy Graham on me). Either way, I will risk one more thought before closing.
One thing you need to know about God and sin is this: He cares MORE about sin and LESS about sins than we do. One thing you need to know about you and me is this: We care MORE about sins and LESS about sin than God does. I am not being pedantic or clever. “Sins” plural are nearly intractable. They include: lying, cheating, slander, gossip, lust, blasphemy, apathy, greed, pride, envy, etc., etc., ad. infinitum, ad nauseam. All of these are just broad headings that do not yet broach the more subjective and personal narrative that includes “me” and how.” In other words, how have I been prideful, envious, lustful, apathetic, etc.? An honest answer creates even more new and copious lists with nearly endless subheadings. We are truly a mess.
It is right here that the difference between God and us becomes most apparent. We humans make great hay out of anyone who gets caught committing such sins. The entire media, print and broadcast industry would dry up were it not for this human craving to sensationalize other people’s sins. In an honest moment, we realize that such crowing over people’s failures is a dangerous game. Often what separates their public humiliation from ours is the simple fact that they got caught. The story of the woman discovered in adultery is telling as the raucous crowd of self-righteous prigs scream for Jesus to allow them to stone the poor woman to death. Jesus, kneeling in the dirt, simply says, “Whoever is without sin among you, go first – fling away.” It is not lost on the reader of this remarkable encounter that the first people to drop their rocks and shuffle off are the old guys. They have lived long enough to realize that no one gets through this life without a skeleton or two in his closet.
But God sees it differently. He realizes that sins, in the plural, are not our real problem. Our real problem is sin in the singular. We commit sins because our nature, our bent, our trajectory cannot do otherwise. We have a sin nature that…sins. In that sense God cares less about individual sins than He does about sin – that entrenched, rebellious DNA which we all share.
Listen carefully to how the Apostle Paul describes the cure:
“You were dead because of your sins and because your sinful nature (my emphasis) was not yet cut away. Then God made you alive with Christ, for He forgave all our sins. He cancelled the record of the wrongs against us and took it away by nailing it to the cross…Since you have been raised to a new life (new nature) in Christ, set your sights on the realities of heaven, where Christ sits in the place of honor at God’s right hand…For you died to this life and your real life (new nature) is hidden with Christ in God. And when Christ, who is your life, is revealed to the whole world, you will share in his glory.” (Colossians 2:13,14 & 3:1,3,4)
The Christian message offers us a way out of a life that has been, up to this point, misspent and without purpose. We need not carry one moment longer the baggage of shame, regret, fear, self-recrimination or a life without purpose. Not only does God lay on the table the offer of forgiving our sins, He also offers us a new nature – Christ Himself as a replacement for the sin nature that makes us sin. As we learn to work with that new nature, we will find flowing within us a river of beauty and creativity. God himself, the Creator and forever the Creative One, will be working through us from the inside-out. We will no longer be missing the mark of why we have been placed on this earth. The future “past-tense” testimony of our life will be as unique and remarkable as our fingerprint…
-CJ
Note: Feel free to linger over this prayer and form it with your own lips to God. If you find the prayer helpful, please drop me a line at: patrickcrossing@gmail.com.
“Dear God, I am not sure I get all of this, but I do know that my life seems to be missing the mark. I feel like I am meant for so much more. I know that I have made mistakes – things you call sins. I would like to ask that you remove these from my life and, as those verses from the above-mentioned Scripture promise – nail them to the cross of Christ. I don’t want to feel guilty any longer over the past. I do not want to live with regret. Please take it all away. I don’t want to be that person any longer and I do not want to make those same choices. And, give me that new nature – the new nature that is Christ Jesus. I can’t be Jesus. I need Jesus to be Jesus. I need Him to somehow live inside of me, to take up residence and to help me make better decisions, to be a better person and to live as a forgiven and free person. I also need His guidance toward what my “big thing” in life is all about. Sort out these prayers and know that I make them with them with humility and hopefulness. Thanks…”
