Giving Up Patchworks for Purity

"The Light of the World,"
William Holman Hunt (1851)

This week I imagined a triumphant, radiant, heavenly Jesus vomiting. And I was in the ejected matter. 

That is deeply troubling on at least two levels. First, I happen to be one of those (normal) folks who finds the topic of throwing up pretty gross. (The moral: Don't call on me to take up mopping duty, OK?) Second, and far more serious, as I imagined Jesus ejecting me, I realized what he was actually doing was rejecting me. That is, or certainly ought to be, the scariest thought we can ever think.

Now I didn't just conjure this up. In Revelation 3:14-22 John tells of his heavenly vision wherein, as a judicial Jesus is calling the churches to account for their imperfections and sins, Christ slams the Laodicean church specifically for being less than fully committed to him (χλιαρός, or literally "tepid"). "I know your works: you are neither cold nor hot," he intones. "Would that you were either cold or hot!" It is unacceptable to him that those who follow him might do it half-heartedly, or with heart and not mind, or with mind but no soul (Deut. 6:5; Luke 10:27). We cannot serve two masters, Jesus tells us; to be on the fence means really that we have not recognized the Christ's full and complete lordship (Matt. 6:24; Luke 16:13). So, Jesus says, because the Laodiceans are lukewarm, "neither hot nor cold, I will spit you out of my mouth." (What the ESV translates as "spit out of my mouth" means literally "vomit out of my mouth.")

No one likes lukewarmness. It's sort of like a limp handshake. No one likes receiving that sort of greeting. It signifies to us spinelessness and passivity. How much more, then, does Jesus care about our reception of him! Remember that the Church is Christ's bride (2 Cor. 11:2), and that Christ demands that we as a body be fully committed to him, radiant and blameless in our ways (Eph. 5:25-27). Because probably nothing is so dim and dull and unexciting as an utterly passionless arranged marriage--for eternity.

I don't want to reach heaven's gate to hear Jesus say of me that I did not crave him, that I didn't hunger, that I only gave half of myself over to him. I don't want to finish the race having tried to straddle the fence. We only straddle fences when we can't decide, or we don't want to, or when we want to act like scavengers, like cavaliers, crumb-nibblers, trying to maximize benefits and pleasures by taking from whatever we find. This is the sort of person our culture trains us to be. We don't think of it as being a double agent, or being of two minds, but rather of being eclectic and valuing mixtures. Our impulse is to fashion a spirituality out of bits and pieces, leftovers, scraps that we've collected. We write "found poetry." We make "mosaics." We create lives and beliefs and attitudes that are untidy patchworks, quilts. We think of it as creativity, as if our initiative and craftiness make up for whatever real deficiencies in truth there may be in our result. We're proud of our creations. My quilt's got some Jesus, so I should be fine. Right?

No, says Jesus; not fine. I want all of you, just as I have given all of myself for you.

So how do we avoid being vomited out, ejected and rejected? Paul, grasping the problem, gives us the answer: "I appeal to you therefore, brothers, by the mercies of God, to present your bodies as a living sacrifice, holy and acceptable to God, which is your spiritual worship" (Rom. 12:1). When we allow ourselves to be consecrated to God, as we lose our lives in the pursuit of eternal life, taking up our crosses in imitation of and dedication to our Savior (Luke 9:23-24), we grow in surrender and trust and love and obedience and satisfaction and joy. We make use of our life--and not just the parts we are willing to make use of, but all of it, knowing that not one part of it belongs to us, since every part required ransom by a righteous Redeemer. Knowing that we need God fully seems to lead to being anything but lukewarm. 

Gracious Father in heaven, open our eyes to abundance of your love poured out on Calvary on our behalf in Christ. Open our eyes to the sin within us that weighed on your Son as he hung on a cross dying in our place. And as our eyes are being opened, as we become aware by the convicting power of your Holy Spirit of the great measure of mercy we daily require, I pray that you would give us a passion for offering up all of ourselves to you for sanctification, so that in the end, standing before Jesus, we may be embraced and not spit out. We approach you in your immeasurable holiness only by your grace. Amen.