What’s Your Major?
Feb 17th, 2010 by David
So I figured out what is not fun. Mostly, for me today, it’s a 3.5 foot solid steel bar embedded nicely in the front of my car – running all the way up and punching into the radiator. In a similar vein, collecting it at 60 mph on the freeway is likewise not fun.
My car now sports a jaunty 1940’s debonair smoker look – with the cigar hanging out of it’s mouth grill.
In fact, it’s jammed inside the hood so tightly, I’m unable to dislodge it alone.
It was mildly annoying to collect an extra 15 pounds of steel on the way home, especially since it was not copper – which I could probably scrap to recoup the cost of the repairs I am sure I’m about to uncover.
“Oh, sir. How silly of you. It might LOOK relatively unscathed but your hydadit converter has clearly been damaged and you wouldn’t want your water piston to rupture the myaletic solanoid, would you?”
No – I most certainly would not! At times like this, Greek seems a lot less useful than say, auto shop, as an academic focus. All in all, I’m grateful it is stuck in the radiator and not in me.
I know we’re not there yet, but I’ve also peeked how the Gospel works out, and I know the disciples are just around the corner. I know, too, that they must have felt at times much like I do today – a bit ill-equipped for the realities of life as it smacked them about the head and shoulders. Yes, yes – it’s all very well saying “From fishermen to fishers of men” – but I can imagine a life of bait, hooks and nets while it might offer some pithy one-liners and great sermon illustration – pales somewhat when faced with winning souls to Christ. Three years these guys spent with Jesus and still the managed to fumble as they dealt with the completely new circumstances of their lives.
Well, I’m a dirty sinner. That’s really at my core who I am. I don’t wake up each day singing a Psalm in Hebrew, eager to be a servant to all and knowing just all the things I can do to please God today. Usually, I wake up in desperate need of a caffeine hit, reminding me how really useless I am to be hooked on coffee, with bleary eyes, a foreboding dread of the next 8-10 hours of work and a resigned acceptance that my life really is not going to be everything I wished it would or could be when I was a fool younger man.
Death will come to me much like that steel bar. Out of nowhere at 60 miles an hour whilst I’m off doing something mundane. It’s not likely to come to me whilst I am feeding staving orphans or from falling on a grenade to save my fellow comrades from certain harm.
in Mark, we open with urgency. There was a messenger that came who proclaimed the coming of the Great King. We’ll unpack that, I’m sure, in the weeks ahead in the book of Mark. But it will be historical biography. It’s fascinating to a guy who loves to collect facts and even who likes to know his intimate friends better. Understanding who Jesus is and what he wants is no small matter.
But there is another voice. It too proclaims the coming of a Great King. It will be the second time he’s dropped by. Unlike the first time, this time, He’s come for a reckoning. I’ll be just like I am today – knowing Greek but needing auto shop. I’ll know sin but need grace. Aside from the odd strange case like Enoch, basically – we all die. I know that’s coming. I’ve been told. I’ve gotten the message.
Have I prepared? Have I made my way straight here in the wilderness of my life? I’m not talking about saintly perfection. I’m not talking about some sort of spiritual Buddhist detachment from fleshy things – I’m talking a personal grip on grace. Or, rather, grace’s grip on me personally. God does speak to us in the broken, hurting, wilderness we live in. If you’re thinking you have it all together, friend, you’re doing it wrong. You’re deluded. You sin. Oh, not like I do in manner or intensity, I’m sure – but enough to alienate yourself from God forever and incur his displeasure when Christ comes back.
I have been thinking about that bar. I saw something from the corner of my eye, but I did not know what it was. I noticed it but did not see it. Then WHUMP – I hit it. As I look back, I can see that the odd shape that bounced out from the car ahead of me was the thing lodged in my car. I can see that there were signs and portents of the event that happened. I imagine my death or the return of Christ will be the same. I will notice the signs but not until after will they fall into place. Unlike the accident yesterday, however, death won’t be a shock. I’ve been warned that it lays ahead for me. I’ve been warned that there is some consequences to it – and how to mitigate those consequences. In life, it will not do to be studying Greek and needing auto-shop. To speak plainly, being a student of sin instead of a student of righteousness will leave you defeated and helpless. Don’t rely on making a last minute change in your major because your graduation will come up on you like a steel bar on the freeway doing 60.
