To The Very End

Have you ever noticed how some people just never give up?

The husband of a friend of mine just biked from Vancouver back home to southwestern Ontario. Over 4000 km. Up and down three mountain ranges. Across the prairies. Through the Canadian Shield. Kilometre after kilometre after kilometre. Pedal stroke after pedal stroke after pedal stroke. For four weeks. He just never gave up.

I would have quit. I would have hit that first mountain range (if I made it that far) and my backside and legs would have been sore, and I would be tired already, and I would have looked way, way up, and it would be too hard, and I would quit.

Or the four guys who decided to row across the Atlantic Ocean, from Senegal to Miami. Yes, row. In a rowboat with no motor or sail in sight. They almost made it, too, until a rogue wave capsized their boat and sent them scrambling for their life raft. They had gotten pretty much nine tenths of the way across. Six weeks alone in the Atlantic Ocean with nothing but water and sky surrounding them, kilometre after kilometre after kilometre. Oar stroke after oar stroke after oar stroke. For six weeks. They just never gave up.

I would have quit. I would have rowed for two days and realised I could still see the African shore from whence I had come, and my backside and entire body would have been sore, and I would be tired and seasick and claustrophobic (think of being with three other people on a tiny rowboat), and I would have looked way, way out into an endless sea of blue, and it would be too hard, and I would quit.

Most of us would quit. But some people just never give up.

I'm beginning to see that people who don't quit are the exception.

We buy a gym membership and within two months have stopped going.
We start a diet, and it lasts two days or two weeks or two months, and then we go back to eating the way we always did.
We start saving, and we save until the next shoe sale.
The people who start a thing and see it through to the end, who not only begin well but end well, are the exception rather than the rule. Most of us just don't hold on to the end.

And while I might, and do, give up on many things, there is one thing I pray that I never give up -- my faith.

I realise that statement opens up a massive theological debate that has raged for hundreds of years. All the Calvinists are crying out, "You can't lose your salvation! Salvation is based on the divine election of God, and if God sovereignly decrees to redeem you,  you shall be redeemed. Period." I get that. I believe it. There are enough texts in Scripture that speak about God's election and my salvation that I can't not believe it.

But then there are the texts like Hebrews 6:4-6:  "It is impossible for those who have once been enlightened, who have tasted the heavenly gift, who have shared in the Holy Spirit, who have tasted the goodness of the word of God and the powers of the coming age and who have fallen away, to be brought back to repentance." It's not the only text that suggests that we can fall away. And while we can debate the theoretical nature of that falling away (we can fall away, but we won't), it is enough to give me pause. It is enough to make me say, "There is one thing I pray that I never give up -- my faith." I want to hold on. I want to persevere. I want to finish well.

And that's what the author of Hebrews is driving at, too. He goes on to say, "We want each of you to show this same diligence to the very end, so that what you hope for may be fully realized. We do not want you to become lazy, but to imitate those who through faith and patience inherit what has been promised." To the very end. Day by day, step by step, moment by moment, until Jesus calls me home. It's not enough to say that I'm never going to lose my salvation. I can sit in my comfortable chair on my soft backside and rest in my comforting Calvinist theology, but the fact is Scripture doesn't allow me to do that. "We want you to show this same diligence to the very end. We do not want you to become lazy."

Trust me, I want to quit.
When I want to be happy and God is more interested in my holiness, I want to quit.
When I want what I want and not what God wants, and the two are not the same, I want to quit.
When I want to entertain this thought or this dream, even though I know it's not "obedient to Christ" (2 Cor. 10:5), I don't want to take it captive. I want to give it free rein. I want to indulge in it. I want to make excuses and think that God will understand. Surely he wants me to be happy. What harm will it do? I'm tired of trying to fight it. If God doesn't want me to think this way, he should just take the thought away. It's not like I don't believe. I still believe. Why should I have to be so holy, when Tom, Dick, and Harry, Sally, Sue, and Samantha get to have their fun and God doesn't seem to mind? It's just so hard!

And it is. It is hard. It makes me want to quit. It makes me want to entertain the thought that, after all, I'm saved, and I can't lose my salvation, so now I can just live my life the way I want. Like a normal person, not like some whacko holy judgmental Bible-thumper who can't enjoy a naughty little thought or habit once in a while. What harm can that do, anyway, when my salvation is secure?

"It is impossible for those who have once been enlightened, who have tasted the heavenly gift, who have shared in the Holy spirit, who have tasted the goodness of the Word of God and the powers of the coming age and who have fallen away, to be brought back to repentance . . . . We want each of you to show this same diligence to the very end."

One of my profs once said, "A saving faith is a persevering faith." How do I know I'm elect? Because I am saved. How do I know I'm saved? Because I persevere. But if I do not persevere? If I deliberately and willfully choose to walk away, to indulge in sin when I know it to be sin just because I want to? A saving faith is not a one-time prayer. It's not the faith of yesterday. It's not the faith of tomorrow. A saving faith is a persevering faith. If I do not persevere, perhaps my faith was never a saving faith.

It's not merely a theological question. It's not about a theological system. It's about the choices I make today, in this moment. Choices to obey rather than to disobey. Choices to follow rather than to fight. Choices to do things God's way even when it hurts, or it's hard, or it's exhausting - and it can be all of those things. Choices that recognise that my choices do matter, that somehow, even though God is supremely sovereign over my life, he has created me with free will, and I must be diligent every moment and to the very end to exercise my free will for him and not against him.

Because it does matter. It matters supremely. I know me. I know how easy it is to quit.

And I pray to God that I never quit.

"Prone to wander, Lord, I feel it,

Prone to leave the God I love.

Here's my heart, Lord, take and seal it,

Seal it for thy courts above."

Sanitized Communion

I'm afraid this is going to be seen as criticism. It isn't meant to be so; perhaps it is more a sense of wistfulness that urges me to write. Perhaps it is the teacher in me that sees an object lesson going strangely flat. I'm not sure what it is, exactly. But it strikes me that, in most churches in North America, we have lost a great deal of the symbolism of Communion. Not in the words that we say, so much, or in what it means to us, but in the rich symbolism that Communion represents.

We talk about how Jesus took the bread and broke it and told his disciples (and us) that his body was broken for us on the night that he was betrayed. We talk about how his blood was poured out for us. It is such a brutal reality. And then along comes this plate with sanitised little wafers which aren't bread and aren't broken and are hardly big enough to even feel in your mouth, let alone break, and a tiny cup of grape juice which isn't poured. Maybe I'm particularly thick-headed, but it takes two leaps for me to get from the elements I hold in my hand to Jesus' sacrifice. I hold this little bit of styrofoam which has no taste and no texture, and I have to think, Oh, yeah, this bit of non-food is supposed to represent bread. And the bread represents Jesus' body. This little swig of juice is supposed to be poured. At least there's enough in the cup to actually taste.

I know that technically it's not about the elements at all. I have celebrated communion with real bread and real wine, with wafers and grape juice, with matza and grape juice, with matza and wine, even with some sort of non-descript pap-bread-like substance and strawberry pretend-koolaid. I get that different cultures and different religous backgrounds use different things. I know that some people think the bread should be bread, and others think that the bread should be unleavened. Shoot, we could have a rip-roaring fight over the elements that ought to be used in Communion, and back it up with chapter and verse, and split denominations over it. First White Bread with the Crusts Cut Off and Welches Only Community Church. I'm not interested in any of that.

But I've got to say that one of the most meaningful Communion services I've ever been in wasn't even in a church. It was at school. (Which could start a whole new argument, but I'm not interested in that, either.) There was a single loaf of bread. We were told about how Jesus' body was broken for us, as the loaf was broken in half. But then we were also told that it was because of our sin that Jesus was on that cross, that as I took bread, breaking off a piece of that loaf, it was a symbol of how my own sin broke Jesus' body. I stood in front of the person holding the loaf out to me, waiting for me to rip a chunk of bread off, and I could hardly do it for the breaking of my heart and the tears in my eyes. I felt such grief at the thought of my sin necessitating Jesus' suffering and death. But I also knew I couldn't walk away. To reach out and cause violence to that loaf of bread was not just admitting that my sin caused violence to the body of Christ, it was also confessing I had appropriated the salvation it represented. It was confessing that he died for me, that as surely as I was about to take that bread and eat it, so surely had his body been broken to warrant my salvation, that I was in him and he was in me. In that one moment, I was reminded afresh of both the horror of my sin and the wonder of my salvation. We poured out the wine (it was actually juice) from a pitcher, into Dixie cups. We saw it fall, red, wet, into the cups. It was visceral and real. We drank, more than a swallow. One loaf. One pitcher. One Body. Broken. Poured out. For me. There was nothing magical about it. It wasn't really Jesus' body or blood; it didn't impart to me salvation. But it was profoundly meaningful; reminded me of the wonder and cost of my salvation, and encouraged me afresh to hold on until he comes again.

Oh, I get it. Germs.  All those hands touching a loaf of bread. I get the whole 21st century fixation on sanitation and germs. I grew up with a single cup, and while I suppose it might be possible that wine kills germs (although I'm dubious), it sure doesn't wipe the lipstick off the cup. I'm not interested in going back to that. Sharing a cup with a long row of people grosses me out as much as it does the next person. Having someone touch a common loaf after he or she's just blown the nose would turn my stomach as much as it would anyone's. I get the logistics of pouring out Dixie cups with juice (or wine) for an entire congregation. I am not willing to get into fights over grape juice vs. wine vs. water, leavened or unleavened, wafers or crackers or bread or rice balls. I don't know how to change it. But it does make me a bit sad to think that there is so much symbolism that we may be missing simply because we are doing things in a way that makes us most comfortable. We have so sanitised Communion that what was at the first an in-your-face reminder of the sacrifice Jesus made for us has been reduced to a wafer so small I almost need to lick my finger to get it to adhere (and what would THAT do for the germ situation!) and a cup of juice that is barely a mouthful.

The Jewish people at Passover eat the bitter herbs. It's hot horseradish. They have to take a big enough mouthful that the horseradish brings tears to their eyes. It's a reminder of the hard labour they did in Egypt. They dip parsley into salt water and eat it. The water is salty enough to taste, and remind them of the tears they cried in bondage. In Jesus' day, they still watched the lamb be killed. They watched the blood pour out and remembered that it was because of the blood of the lamb that they were saved. They ate the bread and they drank the cup, the very bread and cup Jesus took and said, "This bread is now my body, and this cup is now my blood -- a new covenant." It was an object lesson they could see, smell, taste, touch, and hear. It enveloped all the senses. The symbolism was thick and real. We've come a long way since then.

Communion doesn't just look back. Jesus told his disciples that he wouldn't drink the cup with them he drinks it new with us in his Father's Kingdom. Communion looks forward. It reminds us that he is coming back. Every time we take Communion, we "proclaim his death until he comes". The next time we celebrate Communion, it could be with Jesus in his Father's Kingdom. Next time in New Jerusalem, at the wedding feast of the Lamb.

I hope they serve more than a crumb of a tasteless wafer and a swallow of juice.

Holding On

I started 2014 with anticipation.

After two years of wrestling with God, I had come to a sense of peace and resolution. I felt a new level of trust, and with that trust came a sense of expectation that something new was going to happen. A friend spoke words of hope that filled me with excitement. He prayed I would see God working in me and through me in a new and fresh way. I felt like I had come through a wilderness and was about to enter into a promised land. In January, I began a wonderful small group Bible study that spoke about just that: believing God to deliver us from slavery, believing him through the wilderness, and believing him to enter into the promised land.

So I was excited. The last two years had been dry. Oh, my faith had never been in any danger of slipping. I knew that I knew that I knew that I loved The Lord. I studied and taught and prayed. Through all that drought, I held on, believing that it would come to an end. I worshiped. I wrestled. I waited.

And waiting is hard. It is hard to maintain that long obedience in the same direction when every footstep feels the same as the last. The journey wasn't particularly rigourous or painful, but it wasn't particularly joyful or exciting, either. It just was.

Now, I'm not one to base my convictions on what I feel. I'm not going to stop reading my Bible, praying, or going to church just because I don't "feel" anything. I'm not going to quit doing what I know to be right and good in pursuit of a religious high. In fact, I can get downright suspicious when there is an outpouring of ebullience and arm-waving. Mostly when I feel God's Spirit working, he brings me to my knees, not to my feet. I know that God is working even when I don't feel it experientially.

Regardless, I started 2014 hoping for a new sense of closeness with God, a new sense of his delight in me. I wanted the drought to end.

Instead, I have found myself struggling harder than ever to hold onto my faith. I'm not going to let go. I'm not. But, six months after that first flush of anticipation, I have found myself dangerously exhausted, stressed, and close to emotional burnout. There has been one significant loss or upset after another, things that have broken my heart and caused me to have to re-evaluate the very things I believed God was calling me to. I longed to hear God speak to me and know he was listening to me. Instead, I find myself wondering if I have ever heard him in the first place.  I longed to feel God's delight. Instead, I have found myself clinging precariously to the belief that he didn't hate me. I longed to feel his closeness. Instead, I have struggled to refute the lie that he was throwing me aside and kicking me on the way out. All the truths I have held onto in the two years of drought, all the truths I wanted to embrace with my heart and not just my head, I have found myself struggling to believe at all, let alone feel them.

I do still believe. There is nothing else to do. He alone has the words of life. Despite it all, I still do believe that he is God, that he is on the throne, and that all that comes from his hand is goodness. Despite it all, I still love him. I can't help it.

And I still believe that he loves me, that I am who he says I am, that I can do all things through him, and that his Word is alive and active in me. I am still hanging on, desperately, to the hope that my friend's words will yet be prophetic, and that I will see God working in me and through me in a way that I have not yet. I still believe, but it is an elusive thing. If I sit very still and don't concentrate too hard, hope drifts into the corners of my heart and dances on the edges of my mind. But the moment I turn to look at it, it disappears like a Magic Eye image vanishes the moment you try to look at it and not past it. When I turn to see it, it's gone, and all I can feel is an aching void of loss and hurt and disappointment.

So I am trying not to look. I am trying to rest. I am trying to believe that hope will one day move from the edges and dance in my heart again. I am trying to resist the fear that it will always be as it is now -- ephemeral flashes and glimmers without substance, ever ready to flit back into hiding. I am trying to resist the fear that this is as good as it gets.

But if it is? If this is as good as it gets? If I never feel God's delight in me again, if I am left to only know in my head that he does love me, that he does delight in me, because his Word says that it is so, and he does not lie? If that is what it is to be?

So be it.

I'm holding on.

I'm not letting go.

Jesus loves me, this I know, 

For the Bible tells me so. 

Little ones to him belong. 

They are weak, but he is strong.