A Final Metaphor

How to be Hopeful Realists

I’ve tried to show in these last few weeks that from a theological, statistical and historical perspective, the kingdom of God has been growing rapidly over time. It’s infiltrated every major nation and culture, and it’s showing no serious sign of decline. The alarmism and noise coming from evangelicals betrays a lack of theological or historical perspective on our situation. And so we’re acting like thermometers, meeting secular screams with evangelical screams and secular schemes with evangelical schemes.

But because of Jesus’ confident promises, we are free to be thermostats, living according to the temperature of God’s growing kingdom, not the world’s. We’re free to be even-keeled. Gentle. Humble. Because Jesus is really king. Not just in theory but in the real cracks and crevices of our lives. Jesus’ church is on the upswing, if we’re willing to step back from our small slivers of experience (or the even smaller slivers of our culture that evangelical pundits love to zero in on. In general evangelicals need to be far more familiar with “videomalaise”, or the myriad studies that have been suggesting for decades that television news, and now social media, are directly causing our cynicism and anxiety by distorting reality) and consider ourselves part of the worldwide, historic movement of Jesus through the centuries. 

“But secular threats are real.” Yes. But without diminishing this, I want to ask: are we able to hold those truths in tension? Are we able to see the secular threats for what they are, as well as believe wholeheartedly in the kingdom of God and its promises of growth and renewal?

I want to be careful here. On the one hand, I don’t want to take the liberal track which is essentially trying to brown nose its way into culture by shrieking christened accomodations of secularism into the Twitter-sphere, reflecting a somewhat short-sighted cultural approach:

On the other hand, there are the evangelical alarmists who really are “ressentimizing” reality, as Nietzsche would say, and whose position essentially sounds like this to anyone who knows how deeply christened our culture is: 

Is there a way to hold these things together?

If you’d permit me one final Jesus juke, I believe there is. 

Contractions

Let’s return to Jesus’ metaphors for the kingdom. One of Jesus’ metaphors - by far my favorite for its complexity and helpfulness - is that of a woman in labor. There is so much more work that could be done about this metaphor. It’s brilliant. 

For one, it suggests both continual growth as well as resistance. Labor requires both of these things. But it also tells us something counterintuitive: the moments of deep resistance are, in fact, also moments of growth. These are called “contractions”. 

I once had the chance to ask Oxford ethicist/theologian Oliver O’Donovan a question about our attitude toward society. He was giving a lecture about the vice lists in the New Testament, and how, if read carefully, we’d see that these vice lists are meant to progress from bad to worse. 

“In light of that,” I asked, “Should we expect the world to be getting better, or worse?” He gave me a knowing smile and said:

“Well, yes. Exactly.” 

It was in that conversation that O’Donovan suggested to me the analogy of Christ’s life: great progress comes with great resistance. In the world, these things are opposed. But in the kingdom, they go paradoxically together. This is why, as I suggested earlier, we see such hostility from religious leaders and the demonic realm in Jesus’ own life. It was the single most important event in kingdom history, and so it was the most deeply opposed.

Both monumental growth came with incredible resistance: a contraction, of sorts. 

The counterintuitive vision of Jesus here is this: there will be moments in our culture/world that have “high resistance” to the kingdom of God. But the kingdom of God often thrives best, and grows quickest, in these places of resistance. That is the entire paradox of living in a kingdom that is “not of this world”. 

Maybe you think I’m taking the labor metaphor too far. But let’s think, once again, about the life of Jesus. When was the very greatest moment of resistance to God’s kingdom? The cross. And what was the single greatest moment of Jesus’ ministry? The cross. Because there is no resurrection without a cross. Luke seems to use this very logic to describe what happened at Golgotha:

This man was handed over to you by God’s deliberate plan and foreknowledge; and you, with the help of wicked men, put him to death by nailing him to the cross. But God raised him from the dead, freeing him from the agony of death, because it was impossible for death to keep its hold on him. - Acts 2:23-24

The horror of the cross was God’s will and part of his “deliberate plan”. Later on, the Apostles describe the cross as that which “whatever your hand and your plan had predestined to take place.” (Acts 4:28).

Was the cross the single most evil moment in human history? Yes.

Was it also the moment that brought about God’s kingdom? Yes.

This is John’s point in his favorite description of the crucifixion:

“And I, when I am lifted up from the earth, will draw all people to myself.” He said this to show by what kind of death he was going to die. John 12:32-33

This is a double entendre: to be “lifted up” signified a royal coronation, but here, it also signifies the “lifting up” of the cross (where one is hoisted up as a mockery). For John, both things are true in the same moment. This is the paradox of kingdom progress.

The cross was, in that sense, a birth contraction. Both deep pain and deep progress in one movement. And though the cross is a unique moment in Christian history, it’s not a unique pattern. We can hear this paradoxical thinking reflected in the Apostles’ own words as they reflect on the hardships they’ve faced through their own ministry. To take one of many examples, here is Paul on his stay in a Roman prison, in Philippians 1:12-14:

12 Now I want you to know, brothers and sisters,[b] that what has happened to me has actually served to advance the gospel. 13 As a result, it has become clear throughout the whole palace guard[c] and to everyone else that I am in chains for Christ. 14 And because of my chains, most of the brothers and sisters have become confident in the Lord and dare all the more to proclaim the gospel without fear.

Paul is hardly celebrating Roman imprisonment. But he is able to see this as a kind of “contraction”: great government and religious resistance is - ironically - resulting in Paul having access to gospel proclamation among the Roman elites. Not to mention his time and space to write a letter to the Philippian Christians - certainly not his first choice in ministry tactics - that resulted in an epistle we’re able to read through and reflect on today.

Great resistance = great progress.

And that, I believe, is what we are experiencing in the west today. Not decline, but a contraction. The resistance is real, but so is the growth of God’s kingdom. These things can be held together.

All Will Be Well

In his book, “A Non-Anxious Presence”, Mark Sayers suggests that all movements go in stages: revolution, power, institutional forgetfulness, decline, revolution, etc. Or, to put it another way, it may be very true that we’re headed into a “Winter” season for the church. That means we’re in a season where the church is being forced to re-root itself, and to reconsider the way we operate. But ultimately, these kinds of declines can always lead to a kind of repentance and reforging, which is the only real path from “Autumn” back to Summer, lest we’re stuck in a perpetually lukewarm state.

What does this mean for us now?

It means, first of all, this: we need to be a people who are thermostats to our culture, not thermometers. It makes sense for our culture to freak out. But we have a King who is Lord over our culture. The best witness to Christ’s kingdom in an anxious age such as ours is this: we’re not angry. We’re not anxious. We believe, as one of my favorite modern hymns puts it, that “all will be will.”

No, really. Let’s have a little Robin Williams/Matt Damon Good Will Hunting moment right now.

All will be well.

All will be well.

You don’t believe me. Listen.

All will be well.

I couldn’t put it any better than the lyrics of the song these words flow from. May that song be the banner of our hearts in this winter season. I couldn’t commend to you highly enough that you’d take a moment to let it’s hope-filled, gospel-centered message seep into your soul today.

(P.S. I preached this past Sunday on similar themes from Psalm 29. I found the Psalm incredibly comforting. I hope you do as well.)

Through the love of God our Savior, all will be well

Free and changeless is His favor, all is well

Precious is the blood that healed us

Perfect is the grace that sealed us

Strong the hand stretched forth to shield us

All must be well

Though we pass through tribulation, all will be well

Ours is such a full salvation, all is well

Happy still in God confiding

Fruitful if in Christ abiding

Steadfast through the Spirit's guiding

All must be well

We expect a bright tomorrow, all will be well

Faith can sing through days of sorrow, all is well

On our Father's love relying

Jesus every need supplying

Yes in living or in dying

All must be well