Entrance Into Joy

O’ Theophilus,

So much has changed in the past year. I live in a new city, travel new roads, greet new familiar faces everyday, and spend my time doing many new things. There are days when this new life feels very natural, a life that I could not imagine not living in. Other days, my mind wanders back to a life now past. Other faces dotted my vision from day to day. Other activities lined my schedule. Other goals begged for my attention. Sometimes, even in the midst of a new life, the old calls back out from the depths of the past, begging me to come hither.

Life is ever-changing — for all of us. In one season of life, your “normal” has a stable cast of characters, familiar stage settings, maybe even a prominent plot line. Three seasons later, main cast members have since left the show. Staging has been changed for new primary scene locations. The ensemble cast may even look entirely different. Some characters received a contract extension and an extended run in the story; others were written out or exited due to scheduling conflicts. Some early characters that had taken leaves of absence find themselves back in the narrative. Key plot lines concluded, possibly with great pay-offs. Others ended abruptly, unexpectedly, taking you and those around you in an entirely different direction. New plots emerge; new hurdles and twists hang in the air. The show must go on.

As you start to notice elements of transience within the show from season to season, the opportunity to recognize that which remains and transcends them presents itself clearer and clearer to us. Some characters just refuse to let you alone, much like Samwise Gamgee to Frodo Baggins. But even for Samwise, there came a time when Frodo had to go his own way, into an eternal rest in which Samwise was not to follow in as close a step as when they had travelled to the peaks of Mount Doom. What are we to do with the realities of such change? Is there anything that grounds us in permanence across a life which seems frighteningly so transient? 

Christianity recognizes this transience of life, in line with the experiences of loss and change that we cannot deny. At the turning of the ages, Paul calls attention to the transience of life for the church at Corinth across Achaia in 2 Corinthians (2 Cor. 2:1). Indeed, as Paul and his company write to these believers in the midst of their sufferings, the apostle directs their vision to what God is doing in and for them in the present, extending and cutting into the future:

So we do not lose heart. Though our outer self is wasting away, our inner self is being renewed day by day. For this light momentary affliction is preparing for us an eternal weight of glory beyond all comparison, as we look not to the things that are seen but to the things that are unseen. For the things that are seen are transient, but the things that are unseen are eternal (2 Cor. 4:16–18).

For Christians, we have been brought into a change which others deny. As Paul and his companions proclaimed the good news of Jesus in their ministry, he writes, “For we are the aroma of Christ to God among those who are being saved and among those who are perishing, to one a fragrance from death to death, to the other a fragrance from life to life” (2 Co 2:15–16). This “fragrance of the knowledge of Him” drifted through the air, amongst the transient and the perishing (2 Cor. 2:14). The carriers of this aroma, those reconciled to God, contaminate the air as they look beyond what is transient to what is unseen. They “walk by faith, not by sight” (2 Cor. 5:7), carrying with them the “message of reconciliation” (2 Cor. 5:19). Indeed, “if anyone is in Christ, he is a new creation. The old has passed away; behold, the new has come” (2 Cor. 5:17, ESV). The reconciled implore others: “be reconciled to God” (2 Cor. 5:20).

What does this have to do with our personal experiences of transience? What does the message of the future have to do with the present? For Paul, the future cuts into the present, an eschatological gravitas fills and envelopes the now. What Christ has done and is doing drifts into the nostrils of the world through the walking aroma of Christ’s church. Can you smell the aroma that you carry, friend? The Christian life is not one of looking from a known present into an unknown future, shaping it to our will and coaxing it to conform to our image. No, the Christian life is one of looking from a known future into an unknown present, observing how our life is shaped into conformity with Christ’s own image (Rom. 8:28-30; 2 Cor. 4:4).

However, we are not merely passive observers to the work of God in and through us. We are active participants. We, along with Paul and his party, speak as we believe (2 Cor. 4:13-14). At the same time, God makes His appeal through us, an appeal for reconciliation that He has made possible (2 Cor. 5:20).

It is as if we have been given a deposit by our Master, one that we are expected to invest before our Master comes to settle accounts (Matt. 25:14-19). At Olivet, the disciples ask Jesus about His eschatological coming (Matt. 24:3). Having entered the Temple to teach, Jesus had concluded with a lament concerning Jerusalem’s refusal of God and His indictment of their rejection following His parable of the tenants (Matt. 21:23; 23:37-39). He then declared His personal absence from that place until a subsequent return (Matt. 23:38-39). Curious to this future, the disciples ask about these matters, and Jesus teaches about what is to come (Matt. 24:4-25:46). Then, He drops the hammer: “You know that after two days the Passover is coming, and the Son of Man will be delivered up to be crucified” (Matt. 26:2). As the son, heir to the vineyard, was killed by the tenants, so too will the Son of Man be crucified by God’s covenant partner (Matt. 21:37-39; Rom. 9:4-5).

In the midst of this teaching about what’s to come, Jesus speaks through a parable about the expectations for those in the present. A master gives “talents” in different degrees to his servants, entrusting them with “his property” while he is away (Matt. 25:14). Once he returns, he finds that two servants had gone and doubled their allotment, while another had merely guarded his original entrustment (Matt. 25:16-27). He then condemns the one who had not lost the allotment but brought no interest, marking this condemnation with eschatological finality (Matt. 25:26-30). 

What are we to do with these things? Things around us may change. Characters exit the stage; others join the cast. Some dreams die in one season; some dreams grow across them. Plots may conclude as we wish them to; others leave us wanting. 

O’ Theophilus, what’s to come on the stage and what’s already been written behind the stage reshapes and re-orders our present. An aroma drifts from you to those around you, sharpening their awareness of the transience (2 Cor. 2:15-16). An unseen reality beckons you, places demands upon you, along with any whose veil has been lifted (2 Cor. 3:14-16). Across the scene changes, the character exits and entrances, an unshakable permanence erupts into our experience of transience. This grounds us. This demands of us. The reconciliation bound up in Christ’s work meets our lips in the work of God in us and through us. So we speak that which does not change among the changes (2 Cor. 4:13-14). We invest the talents entrusted into our care, that we may be found with interest when our Master comes to settle accounts (Matt. 25:15-19). We long and strive for the good word spoken to the one who lives life from the reality of the future erupting into the present: “Well done, good and faithful servant. You have been faithful over a little; I will set you over much. Enter into the joy of your master” (Matt. 25:21).