A lot of Christian embarking unto this or that can be described by a belief that there, ‘isn’t a good reason not to.’ So when asked, “Why the World Race?” this phraseology always comes to mind. And why not?
Is there not reason enough for all of us in that? Why not? We can always be reductive in this way about how we choose to view the world, our finances, our time — why should we not be? After all, our time is constantly spent, and why not plainly on something noble?
After all, our money fades easily, after all, our face melts, our world does a little shuffle, and suddenly becomes another character entirely, our body fails our eventual pleading in old age; our family, friends, our lovers experience the same.
Everything we are given is a currency. If not spent, it’s lost. Yours and mine are actively lost, in premeditated acts — grievous slaughters — of laziness and trepidation, sloth and greed slobbering away until what we are losing is unrecognizable. If we spend not, it becomes only forfeiture.
We ought, however blindly, away from this menace… why not…? Should we be sorry to guide ourselves one direction or another where there is no discernable reason not to? Do we now concern ourselves with disparraging our decisions, or that of others, where they are simply without reasonable opposition?
Dr. Jordan Peterson, a clinical psychologist, philospher, and prominent intellectual, spoke in January, 2018 of a dream he had.
In the dream, he describes standing in the cemetery of an old church, surrounded by graves. In a moment, the graves lurched open, and great men of the past, “warrior types,” “formidable figures,” rose out around him. Being the warriors they were, they began, immediately, to war on the open graves. Then, as they were (presumably) arising to breaking bone, clashing swords, and shouting in many languages, Peterson sees something else:
They all bowed down to the figure of Christ.
Awaking, he thought, ‘What in the world could that possibly mean…?’
“And then, I understood it.”
His interpretation follows:
“[And] I had a revelation after the dream […] if you have twenty kings, let’s say, and you took the thing that was most king-like about each of them and then you combined it into a single figure, then you’d get a single figure of transcendent heroism, of transcendent good […] that figure of transcendent good is symbolised by the image of Christ. [And] the purpose of that image is so that even the tyrannical king has someone to bend his knee to.”
My heart rends and rejoices hearing him say these words. The Spirit is showing him plainly how Christ brings all things to bear over all men, and showing him of Christ’s revelatory glory, with parity to the letter of Paul to the Phillipians, and the Revelation of John the Baptist: (Romans 3:23, Phillipians 2:10, Revelation 1:7)
“[For] all have sinned, and come short of the glory of God,”
“That at the name of Jesus every knee should bow, of things in heaven, and things in earth, and things under the earth;”
“Behold, he cometh with clouds; and every eye shall see him, and they also which pierced him: and all kindreds of the earth shall wail because of him. Even so, Amen.”
We in Christ believe that Christ is not just symbol of transcendent good, but that He is transcendent Good; that the dissection of the traits of all those great men of the past indicates not a unifying ideal of men, but the unifying characteristics of God, made evident in men, as by Him all were created. (Genesis 1:26,27)
Romans 1:20 further humiliates:
“For the invisible things of Him from the creation of the world are clearly seen, being understood by the things that are made, even His eternal power and Godhead; so that they are without excuse:”
“Why not?” fails us, as all purely rational motivations do. Our wisdom, in searching for any validating reason “why not” to justify our direction, is confounded in the great foolishness of Christ.
We go out that the many without excuse might find hope. We go not by some virtue of selecting a righteous path at random, but by the leading of a Nazarine, gone out just the same.
We go to make bow the great figures of past and present to the Figure of Christ, and to make plain this humbling to the common man amongst every nation.
Even the tyrannical king has someone to bow to. This sociological and psychological necessity of thought alone pays our going fee. Without the image of Christ, we flounder in our judgement (it is not without Christ that we determine our morality, our way forward).
Without the person of Christ, this thinking, our work — achievement, attainment — our gods, our minds fall to ruin.
Do great things in His name or do what will amount to nothing. There is nothing else.
“Why the World Race?” still stumps me. I have little idea why, this, in particular. It could be said that there isn’t any good reason not to.
Still, it is not that going out in general has only no reasoned opposition. Still it is, that only one thing stops the great kings of man from fighting… from bickering over temporal things.
Yes, a singular thing calls men to bow, and betterment — to righteousness:
Christ, and Him crucified.
Go we out to the many, not for want of reason not to, but because nothing else will profit anything in our dying.
We go that all bow to the Figure of Christ. We hope that you will go with us.
Very thought provoking! You are going to see God work mightily in your lives.
We cling to Jesus with you and pray for you. See you soon!
It is interesting that although Paul “had no reason not to go” to Asia, the Holy Spirit kept him from going. Watchman Nee in his written devotional on the topic of ministering to God pointed out that no ambassador goes without his superior’s direct command and no soldier enters a war without an order from his senior officer. So, it is our devotion to Jesus only which commands our staying and our going, not a lack of reason to stay or to go. In this way, we become like Jesus who became obedient to the point of death and proved His submissiveness to do only what the Father had given to Him to do. We trust that God will lead you by His Spirit as you go.