Last October, we were driving home from our house church in Williams Lake on a Sunday afternoon. Just before we got to our turnoff on Highway 97, just before the infamous 127 Mile corners, two brand new Smart Cars came up behind us and passed us. They must have been doing at least 120 kilometres per hour because we were sifting along pretty fast ourselves. Each car was painted with logos of several different sponsors. Their little motors were screaming as they passed us on their way to some promotional event. Each driver seemed to be pumping on the pedals for all he was worth. And they were travelling about three Smart Car lengths apart too, which is really close.
Now about this time, Rodney the moose wandered out onto the highway right at the corners. Rodney is all bull, huge in body and in horn. He's normally secretive so we don't see him much all year, and he is normally discreet with his "affairs" so we don't see him much even during October's rutting season. We could see a long way ahead of us because of the corners, enough to see Rodney walk with great purpose out of the bush, across the right-of-way and directly onto the middle of the road. The racing Smart Cars were down in the pocket of the corner and couldn't see him like we could.
All of sudden the two Smart Cars climbed out of the pocket, rounded the corner and there was ole Rodney. The brakes went on and horns honked furiously. Rodney turned to face whatever it was that was challenging his male rutting dominance (at least I hope that was what he was doing because the other alternative is really scary) and when he saw the pair of charging Smart Cars he put his head down to face them. Somehow the Smart Cars stopped just before they found themselves on the horns of a real dilemma, which was at least twice their size and now shaking said horns as if to say, "Come on boys, let's get 'er done." Rodney stood his ground and little yellow backup lights could be seen at the rear of each Smart Car as the operators desperately rummaged around the gearbox looking for reverse. Rodney turned and sauntered off the road.
I don't know what was going on in the wee Smart Cars right about then, nor what it smelled like, but in our three-quarter-ton pickup truck we all breathed a healthy sigh of relief. Chelsea put it best when she later said, "If they call them Smart Cars how come you look so dumb racing one of them down the Cariboo highway?"
And that's the point of telling this story. A Smart Car, at least in my humble opinion, leaves a person really ill equipped to handle what goes on in the moose pasture that is the Cariboo highway. This is true at any time of year, but particularly in winter, especially at night. On dark winter nights, moose like to stand in the middle of the road on the black pavement, and if their nasty end is facing towards you so that you can't see their glowing eyes, the first thing you know that they are even there is the sound of your Smart Car becoming a moose suppository. At times like this size really does matter. You have got to be aware of the hazards and be properly equipped to successfully handle driving the Cariboo roads, especially in the fall and winter, particularly in the dark. Otherwise you can end up looking real dumb, or dead.
It strikes me that it's like this with following Christ too. You have got to be aware of the hazards and properly equipped to successfully handle going down the road with Jesus. The New Testament writers want us to know the hazards. Jesus Christ is in the middle of a conflict with the world's darkness, with its sin and evil, and if we journey with him seeking his justice and peace in the world, we can't help but be in the middle of his conflict. This is a major theme in the New Testament.
Peter knew this perhaps more than anybody; particularly at the time the first Epistle that bears his name was written. He had come up full against the political and religious authorities of a world bound by darkness and bad news, to which he had to proclaim the liberating good news of Jesus Christ. The people to whom 1 Peter is addressed had come up against it too. And so 1st Peter teaches how to go about properly equipping one's self to handle following Jesus: "So roll up your sleeves, put your mind in gear, be totally ready to receive the gift that's coming when Jesus arrives. Don't lazily slip back into those old grooves of evil, doing just what you feel like doing. You didn't know any better then; you do now. As obedient children, let yourselves be pulled into a way of life shaped by God's life, a life energetic and blazing with holiness. God said, 'I am holy; you be holy.'" (1 Peter 1:13-16)
And now I think I understand something about the purpose of holiness. Holiness has to do with being properly equipped to live in the wild and woolly world with Christ, seeking his peace with justice there, particularly in the dark places. I have to be honest and admit that most often I don't take holiness very seriously. The Word of God certainly does. I want to live in the world, to be fully of the world, to live according to the standards my society teaches or at least allows. The Word of God wants me to live in the world but to not be of it, to live according to the standard that God teaches. God wants me to be in the world but to be set apart for him as I live in it, "to let myself be pulled into a way of life shaped by God's life, a life energetic and blazing with holiness." In the Bible, holiness of course means to live a pure or godly life, but it means more than just that. James Muilenberg in one of his etymological studies suggests at least two
associations for the Hebrew word holy, namely "separation" and "brightness." God's standards for living and the world's standards are not often the same. There is an inherent tendency towards darkness in a world distorted by sin. And there is an inherent hazard in living for God in the world, to be blazing light in the all-too-often consuming darkness. How do I take on this hazard?
The Bible is wonderfully practical, full of grace-filled instructions. From the Old Testament through the New, God's people are continually given pragmatic standards for lives shaped by God, lives "energetic and blazing with holiness." To this end, Moses leads God's people to a mountain and they are given a word of God, Torah – God's instructions for living. It comes in the form of commandment, ordinance and holiness code. God puts a nub on all of this when he summarizes, "You shall be holy, for I the Lord your God am holy" (Leviticus 19:2). To the same end, more than a millennium later, the Word of God takes on flesh and Jesus leads his followers to a mountain. They are given a word of God, instructions for living, the Sermon on the Mount (Matthew 5-7). Jesus puts a nub on all of this when he summarizes, "Be perfect, therefore, as your heavenly Father is perfect"(Matthew 5:48). The continuity in these two grace-filled moments of instruction
leaves me thunderstruck.
And so, time after time I am driven back to these two sections of God's Word to ponder them. And in pondering Torah and Sermon on the Mount, I realize that there is something here for me, something at once very spiritual, practical and equipping. Certainly the instructions have to be hammered out to fit my time and place, done in terms of the spirit of the law if not the letter of it, done under the guidance of the Holy Spirit who inspires both the writing and my hearing. But if I am to live in the world and not of it as Jesus prays that I would (John 17:13-19), if I am "to let myself be pulled into a way of life shaped by God's life, a life energetic and blazing with holiness," here is where I need to be in order to be properly equipped. For me to turn my back on these biblical places of instruction, as I so often do, amounts to driving through the moose pasture of the Cariboo in winter darkness in a Smart Car.
Like the Psalmist, I need to be in the Torah and Sermon on the Mount in a contemplative way, masticating like a bear sucking marrow from bones, not in search of some kind of overly simple life-starving legalism, but of succulent life-giving instructions and principles for living. Indeed, "How well equipped are those who do not walk according to the advice of the wicked, nor take a stand with sinners, nor sit with scoffers; but their delight is in the Torah/Instructions of the Lord, and on these they meditate day and night." (Psalm 1:1-2, author's paraphrase)
