The Sauntering Pilgrim

One of my favorite pieces of advice is from the fourth-century Hindu philosopher, playwright, and poet Kalidasa. “Look to this day,” he wrote, “for it is Life – the very Life of Life. In its brief course lie all the verities and realities of your existence: the bliss of growth, the glory of action, the splendor of beauty. For yesterday is already a dream, and tomorrow is only a vision; but today, well lived, makes every yesterday a dream of happiness and every tomorrow a vision of hope. Look well, therefore, to this day. Such is the salutation of the dawn.”

Jesus began his ministry saying the day God promised had come and the kingdom of God was at hand, so turn your lives around and live as if that good news is true (Mark 1:14-15). And St. Paul wrote, “Now is the acceptable time, now is the day of salvation” (2 Cor. 6:2). The new day you’ve waited for has dawned, they both said, and perfect harmony with all creation is yours.

But sometimes this day doesn’t look so good, and we might wonder if the good news is true, if the gospel is to be believed. In the years after World War I, when forces that would lead to World War II were already building in Europe, Irish poet and politician William Butler Yeats saw the world order falling apart and foresaw a time when the center that kept things together could no longer hold (“The Second Coming”).

Doesn’t his description fit our day a century later, when “Mere anarchy is loosed upon the world” and we wonder if our center can hold? The social and political forces released during recent years have me wondering. Or he could have been describing the world of the Middle East nineteen centuries earlier, when a revolt was brewing against Roman domination and the disciples of a young Jewish rabbi were about to turn the world upside down with a faith never before seen.

We could use a faith like that today, couldn’t we? A faith confident, in the words of St. Paul, “that all things work together for good for those who love God [and] are called according to [God’s] purpose.” A faith that knows “neither death, nor life, nor angels, nor rulers, nor things present, nor things to come, nor powers, nor height, nor depth, nor anything else in all creation, will be able to separate us from the love of God in Christ Jesus our Lord” (Rom. 8:28, 38-39).

That’s the faith our scriptures describe, the faith to which the history of the church bears witness. In the letter to the Hebrews we read what our ancestors in faith endured. They were tortured, they “were stoned to death, they were sawn in two, they were killed by the sword; they went about in skins of sheep and goats, destitute, persecuted, tormented – of whom the world was not worthy. They wandered in deserts and mountains, and in caves and holes in the ground,” never seeing what was promised (Heb. 11:35-39). And yet they kept the faith, a faith that sustained them through it all.

Oh, for a faith like that! – a faith, as the old song goes, “That will not tremble on the brink / Of any earthly woe! / A faith that shines more bright and clear / When tempests rage without; / That when in danger knows no fear, / In darkness feels no doubt” (William H. Bathurst, “O For a Faith that Will Not Shrink”). No one can give you faith like that, but I can pass on some good advice I was given a long time ago: if you don’t have a faith like that, practice living it until you have it, then live it because you have it. In other words, fake it ‘til you make it.

And if I can’t wrap up that kind of faith in a nice package and give it to you, at least I can tell you what I’ve come to believe about it – a belief that has become a trustworthy foundation for my life and that has weathered a few pretty big storms.

First, I believe we don’t need to work or do anything at all to secure our salvation – and by salvation I mean a life healed and made whole, a life full and abundant, lived in perfect harmony with God, with others, and with all creation. The good news is that our salvation, our healing, our wholeness and harmony of life was accomplished in Jesus of Nazareth. We’re home free, our ticket is validated, with no bill coming due. The banquet of heaven is spread before us, and all we need to do is feast on it. We need only to wake up, open our eyes, and behold.

Second, I believe our work in life, if you want to call it work, is not to secure a place in heaven; it’s to give shape and substance to the place in heaven we already occupy. Work out your own salvation, Paul wrote; “put into action God’s saving work in your lives” (Phil. 2:12 NLT). Make your place in the kingdom of heaven, your fullness of life, visible and tangible to those around you. Be conscious and intentional to shape your life around your perfect relationship with God, knowing that God is at work in you, inspiring you to do what pleases God (Phil. 2:13). Your desire for that relationship with God is a sign that God is already at work making that relationship real.

Third, I believe there’s nothing you can do to undo what God has done. The gospel according to St. Paul is that God was reconciling the world to himself – think of it, the whole world! – not counting any of our sins and brokenness against us (2 Cor. 5:19). You are living a healed and restored life today, not because of the good works you have done or the number of Bible verses you can quote; not because you believe in the doctrine of faith or the inerrancy of scripture; not because you understand the hypostatic unity of the Trinity or know anything about Luther’s small catechism; not even because you belong to a church or have been baptized.

“You have come to the city of the living God, the heavenly Jerusalem, and to innumerable angels in festal gathering, and to the assembly of the firstborn who are enrolled in heaven, and to God the judge of all, and to the spirits of the righteous made perfect” (Heb. 12:22-23). You have come to the banquet of heaven because, in the words of Pastor Alistair Begg, the man on the ,middle cross said you can come, simple as that. And there is nothing you can to to undo what God has already done.

Practice living today as if you have that kind of faith, fake it until you have that kind of faith, then you will live that kind of faith because you have it. And you will savor today all the richness of heaven’s banquet. ▪