"For to me to live is Christ, and to die is gain."

Pastor Dunnington preached an entire sermon on that one verse. Correction. On the first half of that verse.

I have always read that verse in terms of the second half -- the "to die is gain" part. I never saw this verse as an affirmation of union life.

What is union life?

Paul uses the term frequently in his writing. How often? He uses the phrase in Christ 74 times, in Jesus six times and in him eight times in his various writings.

What does it mean to be united with Christ?

Dr. Robert Clinton1 defines it:

Union life is a phrase which refers both to the fact of the spirtual reality for a believer joined in spirit with the resurrected Spirit of Christ and the process of that union being lived out with Holy Spirit power so that the person is not dominated by sin in his/her life.

Reformed types like to use a fancy theological term for it. Sanctification.

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There is a saying recorded in the Mishnah, a collection of sayings from ancient sages, that says, “May you be covered in your Rabbi’s dust and may you thirstily drink his words.” This paints a beautiful word picture of how closely a disciple wanted to follow his rabbi—so closely that he would be covered in the dust of his rabbi. In September of 2005, I experienced what it meant to be covered in the dust of the rabbi as I traveled with Ray Vander Laan, founder of That the World May Know Ministries, and a group of 49 other people to Israel and Turkey to study the Bible, or as we referred to it, the “Text,” in its cultural, geographic and historic context. As we traveled throughout the Galilee where Jesus called His disciples and later went to Turkey, where many of His disciples were sent, we entered the world of Jesus and the Text.

As Jesus entered the world of first-century Palestine, He was at the right place and the right time to partake in a very particular practice that had originally developed in Babylon during captivity. What was this? The rabbinical schools and more particularly rabbis who had disciples. It was in this world that Jesus chose His disciples and called them to follow Him.

What did it mean to be a disciple? Often in Western culture we think of a disciple as synonymous with a student. In other words, we think of a disciple as someone who knows what the rabbi knows. This is part of it but doesn’t tell the whole story. A disciple is someone who wants to be, in his walk with God, what the rabbi is. Sure, the disciple and the rabbi may have different personalities or a different taste in this or that, but the disciple has a fiery passion within his soul to be, in His walk with God, who the rabbi is.

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I have written elsewhere that purpose is the holy grail of human existence. I reaffirm that sentiment here. The desire for meaning, for a teleology of life, is an incurable condition in the human heart, its quest a journey that no man or woman can resist. Even those poor, sodden souls who labor in the abstract of rhetoric to deny and declaim the existence of the divine pursue in the shadows of practice an earthly proxy of transcendence. It is irrelevant whether their appetite be for the ecstasy of sensuality, for the status of invincibility, for the acclaim of the cognoscenti, for the glamour of wealth, for the glory of fame, for the caress of a lover, or for the affections of family and friends; in every case it is the irresistible call of meaning that drives them insatiably onward into the deepest caves of darkness and upward to the very pinnacles of creation. Without pausing to recognize the irony, man in abject rebellion against eternity proves its existence by pining ever more desperately for its substitute.

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The above comic is just an illustration of a question I have been thinking lately while putting this blog together. Are we, as a society, loosing the art of oral persuasion? I have come to ask the question more and more as I have closer contact with people from all different walks of life, in all different countries. I am astounded at the amount of personification a simple telephone conversation can convey.

I know someone reading this is going to say that it is unfair to judge a person just by the way that they talk. But is it really? We all have heard that the first impression is the worst one to have to change. Linguistics is an art form, and it is one art form I am afraid we are loosing. I have a few reasons to think why:

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Our wonderful free market economy brings with it an unhealthy insatiability. We need only to look at the lessons from those who have “made it” to bring us up short.

Dr. Avner Offer, professor of economic history at Oxford University has spent the last 20 years studying quality of life questions and has recently written a book called The Challenge of Affluence. In his book, Offer tracks the downside of wealth. Rather than bringing contentment, it seems to foster false expectations, stress, and anxiety. The drive to achieve financial goals creates permanently raised expectations, so that the wealthy forget how to enjoy the simpler things in life. They become acclimated to the “wow factor” with the closed deal or the newest acquisition. Gorging on the fruit of success, many of us forget to savour the taste. Our lives are lived in a vortex of goals and maximum achievement where anxiety and impatience rule.

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May the month of May bring you thoughts of Joy and Peace as God renews our soil, or hearts and our minds. From my family to yours, I truly hope that the month of May brings you closer to Christ then you have ever been.

In Him, through Him, and for Him

Carl
Administrator, Every Square Inch