Proverbs 31 haunts me with a particular phrase: “She is clothed with strength and dignity; she can laugh at the days to come.”
Here is a woman living in a time before penicillin, washing machines and the rule of law. In a geopolitical culture where a bad king could make life hell, and where an invading enemy could destroy everything you worked for, and where you were very likely going to lose at least one child to death, or die yourself bringing them forth. She lived in a world where bad guys could round up your family members and enslave or kill them in the blink of an eye.
There was no Medicare, Social Security or government backed securities.
The earth has always been a rugged place to live, in every time, in one way or another. Where the human race struggled for eons to stave off starvation, it now battles (at least in the West) diabetes and hypertension, often the result of the availability and consumption of too much food. Ironically, where pain was a mostly unsolvable problem, thousands are dying in our day in America of pain-killer overdoses. Poverty was, and ever will be with us until the earth is renewed. Pestilence and war and death rattle their noisy chains as loudly as ever. Cain is still killing Abel. The heavy anvil of sin and its fallout has made its cosmic dent on mankind.
So is this bold statement realistic for disciples of Christ in the 21st century? Is it possible, let alone advisable, to laugh in the face of all the folly and despair and devastation of a world where wrong is seen as right, where the ancient understanding of an unchanging, foundational moral law is mocked? Where to seriously believe that the Bible’s traditional sexual ethic is true is to make one a hater or a bigot?
I know a few living examples of saints who somehow find the balance between a serious and sober take on their lives and callings, but who can also laugh long and loud at the goofiness of a dog, or the Abbot and Costello “Who’s on First” skit, or some personal ding-a-ling thing they’ve done. These are the people I want to be around, and to be like. They have a faith so sturdy and grounded that they can “rejoice with those who rejoice and sorrow with those who sorrow”, managing these context switches with ease and grace.
What kind of a world are we talking about living in if those who have glimpsed at the robust joy of Jesus carry on with sour faces and doom and gloom outlooks? (It’s always hard, this preaching to oneself…).
I’m re-reading a favorite time travel novel right now, (it’s actually a 2-part book: Blackout and All Clear by Connie Willis). It’s a masterfully written fiction with a whole lot of real history weaved into the story. The novel(s) takes place mostly in London during the German Blitz, when the English were mercilessly hammered by Hitler’s Luftwaffe from September 1940- May 1941. Stores stubbornly stayed open at Christmastime, and Londoners determined to keep their Yuletide spirit alive while their world was on fire. Mugs of tea were passed out in the underground train shelters, because no one is coming between a Brit and their cuppa. There’s no doubt these folks were facing an existential threat…and no doubt they worried and wept and wondered… but there was an undertone of hope, a trust that the darkness would not prevail. And that proved to be critical to their survival in the end.
There’s no mistake that these are the times we are made for:
“From one man He has made every nationality to live over the whole earth, and has determined their appointed times and the boundaries of where they live.” Acts 17:26
We could not choose when we were born, nor where. But this we can do: we can choose to live in hope. We can believe that the Keeper of Israel, who does not slumber or sleep, is sovereign. No ultimate harm can come to those in His care, in His abounding, extraordinary, gracious shelter. We must be deadly serious in our own efforts to kill the sin within that seeks to kill us. We must help those who suffer, mourn with those who mourn, and have a true and sober view of things as they are. We must stand up and face the darkness, even with trembling, tea in hand…
And dare I say, we who have such a lofty Hope, can laugh at the days to come…
Your friend on the Pilgrim Road,
LS
