I know I am posting from the reading of last week but I still want to put my two cents in.
To be honest, I do not know how to respond to Chapter 23 in DOTE. I keep attempting to summaries or put my thoughts into a way that others will be able to comprehend but oh well. I just want to throw out all that stuck out to me in 23.
Babylon is an imposter! It is the "code word for humanity seeking to build the city without God." (299) And because of Babylonness it "falls because evil self-destructs. Systems built on principles inconsistent with the living God will not endure." (302) EVIL SELF DESTRUCTS! It does, we have all experienced it. I know I have, when I experience that small moment where I become prideful of my own capabilities and say "God, don't worry about it. I can take care of this one by myself, you go focus on someone who really needs you helping hand." and then BOOM! Everything explodes. A pie to the face, if you will. because evil self-destructs! As Darrel said, "Rome itself was not the problem. Babylonness, which got hold of Rome, was the problem." The Babylonness got hold and seeped into Rome's core. destroying it from the very begining. Whats more is "whatever Babylon John was facing in the first century, it is not the last. There were more to come, which is why it is possibly to wake upone morning and find yourself in Babylon." (295)
The end of this chapter in DOTE left me with such hope. How many times have I been told this and also know this in my heart? And yet I still need reminders, I still need to be sat down and reminded that this world is full of Babylonness but that is not where I am called to live. "Come out of her, my people, that you may not particiapate in her sins and that you may not recieve her plagues." (Rev. 18:4) The call to come out. "To live "in" the city but not "of" the city." (304) I walk through this city everyday, as we all do. I feel so concentrated and stuck in the Babylonness when I go to school. I walk through campus and overhear the conversations about broken relationships spontaneously occuring on weekend escapades, or peers in dance classes talking about their wild parties they attend, or just the witness the isolation in which we all walk in as we move from location to location. I feel saturated in the Babylon taking hold of these people, of this place, this city and then feel it begin to seep into my own being. But then Darrel ends the chapter with an eye opening reminder of the hope we have in Christ Jesus. "That right in the middle of the 'great city' the Lamb who is Lord of lords and King of Kings, who is able to lead us into the ways of the 'greater city' to come. Jesus gave us Revelation to free his church from its 'Babylonian captivity'-to free us for the new city, which will never fail." (304)
Jesus gave us Revelation to free us FOR, for the new city...which will never fail because Jesus Christ is sitting front and center on the thrown not as a Lion but as the Lamb. Dripping with blood...and yet bright blindingly white...calling us to come.
Megan, Cassidy and I were talking before we were seated on Friday @ islands and we were discussing how the world is SO sad, and because of the fact that we live among and sometimes take part in babalonnness we should be brought to our knees in prayer, Prayer changes things! I love the bright blindingly white, bloody and broken. We are often placed there to reflect this BLINDINGLY white light, sometimes by listening, sitting in on, or offering some encouraging words to the people around us. That is community we are called to be in, not of, but in.
ReplyDeleteGenni- thanks for your posting, a true great reminder for us all!
Jen - I'd like to echo Andy's call to prayer. Anything that pushes us to prayer is a gift of grace. So, I guess, if Christ is pushing you to pray for those suffering at school then His grace is leading you to a good place in the midst of a sad situation (the school community you described.)
ReplyDeleteOn a somewhat related topic - Again and again this holy week I've been reminded that the light shines in the darkness. I find it really interesting that Jesus seems to know a whole lot in advance about the disciples' failures heading up to calvary. He flat out tells Peter ahead of time - you will fail and/or flail. It, for me at least, begs the question, "God, when I proclaim that you are in control am I proclaiming that you are soon to reveal my failure and darkness in a very conspicuous way such that I would know your power, grace, and mercy? (like Peter)"
Romans, which I've quoted before, affirms what we see at school campuses, in history, and certainly in God's story presented in the scripture. "God has consigned all creation to futility and decay in hope that we would seek after him."
I've been saying that verse to myself a lot lately as I walk the beat in my own personal Babylon, local Babylon, and the geo-political statewide, national, and international babylon.