Christianity is life and death. It isn't, at it's core, about anything else. Yes it's about righteousness, and about help in time of trouble, but that's not the core of it. The heart is life and death.
The story begins that way, with God giving life to all, and the fall of Adam, which meant immediate death spiritually, and physical death eventually. To redeem the sons of Adam, it took life - the life of Jesus - and His death on the cross, and then life once more, as He was raised again.
The church knew it, as in it's infancy it struggled, passing from the joy of the Resurrection, to the confusion and grief of His ascension, to the rebirth which was Pentecost. And we will struggle yet again, through revival, and then a great apostasy and persecution, followed by the return of our Lord.
In our own lives we see it. We pass from a relative ignorance of sin, til we know the reality of it, and we ask for pardon from our Maker. We repeat this, as time after time we have to lay parts of ourselves on an alter, in sacrifice, from which again can come new life.
I am sitting now in a dedication service, thinking these thoughts - meditating on the fact that we are dedicating this little one to death, that they might live. As my children grow, I am faced with the reality of the choices they will make on their own. Eventually, I have to trust in God and in the things their mother and I have tried to teach them. The potential horror of the choices they might make has been overwhelming me of late, making the past few months some of the hardest I've ever experienced. I've been terribly afraid of their rejection of God, and their eternal loss, as they move outward from the safety of home. What can I do if they turn away?
I would pay good money for nice pretty answers - ones that would assure me that the apparent utter rejection of God and all goodness is not what it seems. How can I look forward to joy with my Lord if they are lost? What do I do with the love that I have for that person?
I don't know the answer. What I do know is this - I am not alone. My heavenly Father knows what this is like. His son Adam committed suicide. He chose death instead of life. He rejected all the good he knew, despite knowing what was to come. And how many more of Adam's children have done the same, and destroyed the gift of God that was the life they lived. God knows the grief of a father.
Is there redemption? I do not know. However, the pattern we see throughout is that of life swallowed up into death, then re-emerging in a yet greater way. Can death have the final victory? No. A thousand possibilities arise in my mind, but in the end, I have to stand with George MacDonald and say "When shall a man dare to say that God has done all he can?" I will stand in the power of the Spirit of Life and Truth, I will pray, I will grow, I will hope, and I will continue to love.
