Suppose

I’ve never done this before, but it’s time.  For twelve years I’ve written all the articles for this blog, Journey North Character. I’ve never re-posted an article, but I am today, adding a bit at the opening and closing to connect it to our new series. I’ll also add a photo.

Last month I began a new series dealing with some current social issues and biblical responses, by juxtaposing the trans movement with transformation in Christ. Now there’s a contrast.

I published the following post on June 22, 2014, entitling it “The Rest of Dad’s Poem.” Paul and I lived in Prescott Valley, Arizona then. Sigh (memories).

***

I’ve been sitting on my recliner, reading my father’s poetry and his grandfather’s poetry. My dad — Marion R. Thomas. My great-grandfather — Daniel Driver Thomas. I never met Daniel Driver, but I heard about him from my father. Dad loved and respected his family members. Dad loved and enjoyed God’s world.

Marion Thomas, age 81. Picture taken by his oldest grandchild, Amanda, when she was taking a photography class at our community college. Note the knit cap he often wore in his latter years when he was cold.

I even found a poem he wrote entitled, ” Come, Celebrate Grass” ( 40 lines about his lawn, written around 1987).  [Another poem he wrote, which I think will connect well with our new series on current social issues, is Dad’s poem entitled “Suppose” written in the 1940’s when Dad was in his 20s.] Here it is.

Suppose

Suppose that Christ had not been born

That far away Judean morn.

Suppose that God, whose mighty hand

Created worlds, had never planned

A way for man to be redeemed.

Suppose the Wise Men only dreamed –

That guiding star whose light still glows

Down through the century!  Suppose!

Suppose He’d counted all the cost

And never cared that we were lost

And never died for you and me,

Nor shed His blood on Calvary!

Upon a shameful cross! Suppose

That having died He never rose!

And there were none with powers to save

Our souls from darkness and the grave?

As far as many people know

These things that I’ve “supposed” – – – are so!

The page from which I am copying this ends with a paragraph from my dad’s pastoral pen: “Now read this poem again and suppose just as the message is given here. Is the Lord Jesus Christ real to me now? Am I saved and know it very clearly? If not, pray — Lord Jesus, hear my prayer  — I receive You now as my Savior and Lord of my life! Come in to my life and save me and make me a child of God! Praise You Lord Jesus! Amen!”

It is amazing to think about what our world at large would be like and what our own personal lives would be like if the Jewish people had never heard God speak to them and reveal Himself.

Would anyone know you if you personally did not choose to express yourself?

God gives us blatant clues about Himself through nature, and then clarifies Himself through specific language, the revelation of Scripture. He clarifies Himself even more precisely through Jesus — the Word made flesh who lived among us.

If Jesus never came or was less than legend, nothing more than mythology, what world would we have? Who would we be?  How would we even count our years?  No  Anno Domini (A.D). Or, Anno Domini Nostri Jesu Christi  (in the year of our Lord Jesus). Even the secular B.C.E. and C.E., though de-christianized, are based upon the historical life of Jesus!

Without God’s revelation of Himself and His gifts of His Son and the indwelling Holy Spirit,  would the world of people sustain sufficient goodness and wisdom to endure this long?  Life requires spirit — breath,  and life requires goodness — the healthy drive to bless others with life-promoting relationships.

When we suppose life without Christ, we imagine a broken world without a mending architect.  Little intelligent observation is needed to recognize that humankind and this planet are broken and in need.  You have heard of a “messiah complex.” Might it not exist because of the weighty need that is felt at the soul level? Might such a need not be a haunting clue that a messiah truly does exist? Is not the meaning of “Christ” the Greek translation of the Hebrew, “Messiah”?

I would rather suppose another supposing scenario.  Suppose the Mending Architect did the mending and all is well.  

“It’s eight o’clock and all is well!”  “It’s twelve o’clock and all is well!”

No matter the time of day or night, the conclusion everyone draws is that “All is well!”  That’s a beautiful “suppose.” But are all such supposes irrational fantasy? Could some supposing actually be “sightings” of the coming kingdom when we will live happily ever after?

Jesus said, “I go to prepare a place for you, and if I go, I will come again and receive you unto myself that where I am, there you will be also” (John 14: 2-3). As a child, I memorized a large portion of this chapter with the help of my mother. Scripture has shaped my mind so that I see hope in the heavens and hope amid present hurt. Inspired by my father to “Come, Celebrate Grass,” I can “compare the beauty of the dawn with the excellence of nature’s gift, a well-groomed, lovely lawn!”

At the beginning of Jesus ministry, He read these words from the Isaiah scroll:

“The Spirit of the LORD is upon Me, because He anointed Me to preach the gospel to the poor. He has sent Me to proclaim release to the captives, and recovery of sight to the blind, and to set free those who are downtrodden, to proclaim the favorable year of the LORD” (Luke 4:18-19).  Jesus claimed that He is the fulfillment of this prophecy. This sounds like the Mending Architect to me.

Eternity will tell. Today, my supposing is a trusting : a faith in ultimate goodness through the way, truth, and life of the Messiah, Jesus.

***

Here the articles ends.

Dad’s poem, “Suppose,” concludes,

As far as many people know

These things that I’ve “supposed” – – – are so!

This is the post-modern, post-Christian world. A world where children and adults have been protected from the Scriptures and historic Christianity through the secularization of our institutions and much apostasy, cowardice, and spiritual anemia within churches around our country and in many parts of the world.

I wrote about one particular example of trans thinking in the last post. In such thinking we see that the supposing away of Jesus is complete. More than complete. The supposing away of a biblical worldview supposes away basic, material reality in order to devise and worship a new yet ancient godless god.

I have often thought that with the removal of theology in education (once the queen of the sciences), anthropology then becomes the new god: man is god. “No one can save us; we must save ourselves.” This is humanism. Christian educators have been warning of the dangers of humanism in its many outfits for several centuries. (Consider the histories of Harvard, Yale, and Princeton as examples.) Now, the new humanism is transhumanism. Evil has emerged brazen, gorging on the flesh of a decayed Christianity and the civilization it shaped or influenced.

“Suppose that Christ had not been born that far away Judean morn.”  We don’t have to suppose any longer. However, we do need to proclaim the Word of Christ, because He is so. He is what the souls of boys, girls, men, and women, no matter their orientations, are longing for.

Remember again the Scriptures Jesus read aloud in the synagogue when He began his ministry:

The Spirit of the LORD is upon Me because He anointed Me to preach the Gospel to the poor.

He has sent Me to proclaim release to the captives, and recovery of sight to the blind,

to set free those who are downtrodden, to proclaim the favorable year of the Lord.”

Luke 4:18-19

 “Today this Scripture has been fulfilled in your hearing,”

Jesus explained, closing the scroll, with all eyes fixed on him (Luke 4:21).

Today.

Today is the worst of times; today is the best of times.

Today is the “favorable year of the Lord.”

Let us seek Him.

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