Seeking The Other, Finding The Self

"he himself gives everyone life and breath and everything else. 26 From one man he made all the nations, that they should inhabit the whole earth; and he marked out their appointed times in history and the boundaries of their lands. 27 God did this so that they would seek him and perhaps reach out for him and find him, though he is not far from any one of us. 28 ‘For in him we live and move and have our being."  -Acts 17:25-28

What does Salvation even mean? How do we come to embrace the message of Jesus?  What does the holiness [the otherness] of a living God have to do with my identity? All of these concepts interrelate in important ways that contribute to an overall picture of what it means to be human and what it means to be a new creation. I began this blog a few years ago. Its title came to me almost outside of my own understanding. I wasn't really sure what I meant by it or hoped to learn in this time of my life. There were even times I thought this blog had died and spoken its last breath. Today I found out I was wrong. For the first time I think I have an idea of what this journey, that I began four years ago, is really all about.

I have come to find that salvation is something we participate in. It is something done in and among us. Salvation is something that we proliferate by our own volition and way of life. Not to say we proliferate salvation by our own power, but God's call to draw all people to the cross must be responded to not simply acknowledged intellectually. The reason that response is so crucial is the fact that reality is not static or idealistic nor intellectual but rather participatory and experiential. Reality is active and moving. Jesus does not exist as Lord ideally or even statically. Jesus is Lord to those who relate to him as Lord. Just saying that Jesus is Lord is different than relating to Jesus as Lord. I call Barak Obama the president of the united states, but I didn't vote for him and I certainly wouldn't bow to him or pledge allegiance to "his" nation. Of what importance is his title if I do not relate to him under its conditions?

One day every knee will bow to Jesus, this is true, but  the basis for this promise is in the fact that God relates to Jesus as Lord and however God relates to something is how it is. Therefore identity comes from relation, and not just abstract relation, but relation in the sense of relation-ship. True identity cannot be found outside of relating to something or someone else. Ultimate identity is therefore found in God. Idolatry then, is the act of relating to something as God, that is not God. In other words, relating to anything as ultimate other than God causes the death of our true identity which can only be found in Him.

It is scary for us to relate to the other, though. We loose full control of determining the expression of our selfhood. The boundaries of the self get swallowed up in the boundaries of the other. Identity is not solely constituted in individuality. For this reason we must have the will to embrace. The will to embrace is a gift from God that enables us to find who we truly are. Embracing the other is the starting and the finishing line in the process of salvation. We must embrace Jesus to accept the call to salvation, we must embrace the movements of the spirit along the way as a process of receiving our true identity, and as we continue to embrace the spirit we find that we are led time and time again to embrace the other. This process continues until the gospel has reached every tribe and language, and at that moment the veil will be removed and we will know the one who fully knows us, the two parties shall fully embrace one another and the old shall pass away giving way to the new.

God's mission, to embrace and set us free from the dying and isolated self, is something that we participate in for our own sake but also something that we extend to others on God's behalf. The Kingdom of God is in and among us as something we abide in. Our very identity is contingent on a plurality and therefore human identity and salvation are found, expressed and embraced in and among community. When all of this comes together the image of God is made manifest to our physical eyes. He who is three. He who inclines to the other and whose self is constituted by the giving of it. Our God who is Love. Our God in whom the will to embrace originates. The present one, the intimate one, the moving one, the living creator of the universe who is in and among us. In Him we find our being and have our breath.