Dale’s Reflection - Grieving Facebook - 06.25.2020

I don’t engage Facebook, for what I think are good reasons. But for the last several weeks, my interest in Facebook has increased as others have shown me what is “posted” and “shared”. To write with candidness, I grieve the postings of Christians attacking one another concerning the management of the pandemic, racism in America, and convictions about the upcoming election. I find it disheartening that Christians would use a secular, public platform (or any platform for that matter), to attack one another, often without restraint. And I stop to grieve for Christ’s Church. I don’t understand, am dumbfounded by, those who claim Christ, engaging in unrestrained venom toward others. To win the argument, or score my points, or defend my cause is not worth cutting someone’s ear off, or having my own laying in the dust. What damage is done to individual souls, building on sand instead of on rock?

To write plainly, I believe the Bible to be without error, authoritative and trustworthy. As I live under the authority of Christ, I live under the authority of Scripture, whose words form me into Christ’s disciple. Often, this formation is painful, for it calls for repentance and the renovation of my own heart. Sometimes, it is seeing the log when I am surveilling for splinters. When I read the Sermon on the Mount, it is Jesus’ sermon to His citizens. It is about the already and the not yet, the prayerful submission to “Your Kingdom come, your will be done, on earth as it is in heaven.” It is Christ’s commands found in blessings: blessings of the poor, the merciful, the meek, and the peacemakers. It is for those who thirst for tsedeq, a righteousness that I am helpless to live into without Christ. It is glimpsing the telos here and now, being faithful to the Christ’s reign in all human relationships, in all societal systems, in all cultural mores. It is living in witness to the love of God in Jesus Christ that desires the salvation of all humanity, knowing that the very power of hell is defeated in Christ. Yet, there is so much that tempts our reactions not to live in love and obedience to Jesus Christ. There is so much that can drag us to shameless places that throw off the reign of Christ.

On this side of eternity there will always be the friction and strife borne of sin and evil and simple limited humanity, but in all of this I pray I can know, I have no cause but Christ’s.

In Jesus’ Name

Dale Edwards