Is There a Point to Being a Christian?

It’s that auspicious time of year. The air is cold and crisp, the mums are glorious, the leaves are falling and swirling in a blaze of color, the candy has almost all been consumed, we’ve recovered our lost hour, and we’re in the process of electing a new president.

Now more than ever is a good moment to notice what is the use of being a Christian. As the leaves die and fall, and the world rushes to each new ancient wickedness, there doesn’t seem to be any point to Christianity any more. Why bother, one might say. Either persecuted or marginalized, irrelevant or foolish, Christianity has nothing of substance to offer. It should get out of the way and let secularism with a hefty sprinkle of Islam takes its place. Especially as Christians are bad people. And judgmental. And hypocritical. And also just bad.

So this morning, before I arise and run around in all the directions, I wanted to ask us all to stop and consider what the Christian might be like if he, or indeed she, were not so self defined. What would the Christian be like if he wasn’t a Christian.

To discover this you would need to go into a church and sit next to some of the people and find out a little bit about their lives. Say you endured the service and then went into the church hall for some sort of church bilge passing itself under the name of coffee. And you got chatting with someone who seemed to complain about everything. You asked him how he was and he began to tell you everything that hurt. Or you troubled to ask the woman picking over the strange looking cookies what she does for a living and she began to complain about her boss. You struggled through the room, asking all kinds of questions of all kinds of people and by the end of 45 minutes you were Not Impressed. You think all these people should get out more and do something more useful with their time, something more uplifting. You leave smug and happy that you don’t waste your time on so much foolishness.

But when you asked the man how he was and he began complaining about what hurts, what he probably didn’t mention, because you didn’t ask, is that for many years he had a long catalogue list of drug problems. He has slowly and painfully left them behind and clung on, rather haltingly, to Jesus. Everything hurts because his body is kind of a mess. As for the woman complaining about her boss, she didn’t mention it, but she was so fretful and complaining because she was up much of the night praying for that boss, and about him. He weighs on her mind and she wishes he would come to church. When she opened her mouth her complaint was really a badly expressed lamentation.

And all the other people? Pretty much the same. Some kind of seismic shift has been endured at the hands of God by each and every one. But it wasn’t loud and clanging. There was no trumpet blast. The strange, troubling reorientation of the soul away from the narrow ego and towards God is visible to only a few. The changes are subtle, difficult to see, only rejoiced over by the angels. The softer expression in the eyes, the brighter smile, the first painful act of forgiveness, the gradual backing away from addiction. All these ordinary, unremarkable people in the room do not amaze the world. But if the world could see, which it can’t, it would be surprised.

To flip it the other way, I wondered to myself what Mr. Trump and Mrs. Clinton would be like if they at some point had come to look God in the face, and were to cling onto the Son. What results could the world expect to see of such a transformation? What miraculous change of character?

I imagine that Mrs. Clinton would still drink quite a lot, and perhaps continue to lie as the first thing in every situation. It would probably be years and years before she instinctually told the truth. You, the outside onlooker, might find her abrasive and difficult. But those close to her would probably be stunned. The first shift away from the self and towards God is the greatest and most devastating of all divine miracles. Someone near her would probably notice, would be amazed, but then would forget as life continued on in much the same way. Only looking back would anyone see each incremental change in orientation and character, each consideration of another before herself in imperceptible and barely definable ways.

And Mr. Trump? Might we expect anything more than slightly less bombast? Perhaps a pause before lusting after the next younger woman? Only those closest to him would be able to say.

The great value of the Christian life is not that it amazes the whole room. Rather, it is God gently and exhaustively turning individual people towards himself and way from evil, away from trouble, away from the wickedness of the unrestrained self. It isn’t armies, or programs, or fixing all the broken systems by better less broken systems. It isn’t coming up with solutions and policy and a new and better leader to rally around. And most especially, it isn’t quick.

But it is sure. It is unassailable. Unsurpassable. There is no way to overcome and destroy the work of forgiveness, the foundation of joy, the outworking of God’s peace between individual people. Once the human heart has been turned and enlivened by grace, it can’t be killed or deadened or destroyed. It only goes steadily and painfully towards glory.

Mountains will crumble, the sea will dry up, but the redeeming work of God to save and restore will endure forever. A happy Sunday to you!