In Christ Alone

I wonder what that would be like. Soren Kiekegaard wrote about the risk of getting too close to the Bible, the risk of actually living according to the new testament: "'My God,' you will say,'If I do that my whole life will be ruined! How would I ever get on in the world.'" He suggests that this is the danger of Biblical (and probably theological) study. We sit and talk an awful lot. The difficulty for most of us is that the paradigm of the gospel and the paradigm that we consist in have very little overlap. So it becomes virtually impossible sometimes to do much more than speculate--though we (I) occasionally proclaim some righteous indignation at the state of things.
In a worship service we offered yesterday we sang the song 'In Christ Alone.' It's a beautiful song and falls nicely in my vocal range, but I wonder if we don't take a pretty significant risk in singing it. Kind of like praying for God's kingdom to come--we'd better be careful what we ask for. "In Christ alone, my hope is found" sounds great (it's nice to have hope taken care of), but what would we look like if that were true? I don't think I need to list here all the ways in which I fail to hope in Christ alone. But, suffice it to say, I have some backup plans!

Nevertheless, as I move towards the possibility of surrendering to my God, I have begun to wonder what I am so uptight about. Although from the outside allowing God to be God, seems a bit crazy, the freedom of knowing that worth and purpose are not tied up in the things we do, but in the things God has done is a strangely and wonderfully disorienting thing. The world is suddenly not so complicated--not simple mind you, and definitely not easy, but not so concerned about the silliness that we put ourselves through, for the sake of our security, for the sake of our sense of value, for the chance to individuate. That I don't have to overcome you, or look out for number one, is a freedom from violence, anger, jealousy, hatred etc. etc. It is the freedom to love, to live life to its fullest, to engage the world instead of trying to hoard it up in a special box that only I have the key to.

I'm not there yet, but I'm pretty sure it's just over that hill. Fortunately, my God walks with me, so we'll find out together. (Luke 24:13-35).