Take heart

I have the impression at times that a fair amount of people feel the world should be just. No one has actually come right out and said this to me in plain English, but I certainly perceive that to be the case based on their reaction to events appearing to be unjust. Actually, I also believe the world should be just. The rub is I know it's not. This is interesting to me because at no time in history have humans experienced a natural environment where justice is the predominant outcome, and it makes me wonder where we got the idea that it should be. It's really as if the concept came from another reality altogether.

One particular brand of injustice seems to bother people very much, and this is when bad things happen to good people, and to a slightly lesser extent, when good things happen to bad people. I can still remember an analogy one of my high school teachers used to help us remember that two negative numbers multiplied together produce a positive number; when a bad thing happens to a bad person, that's a good thing. I still remember this for a reason.

I believe we are particularly bothered by this occurrence of injustice for the simple reason that we'd like to believe we have the power to remove bad things from our life. Not that we necessarily want to make all the sacrifices associated with being a good person (I mean who really wants to be nice all the time, and quit swearing, and go to church every Sunday morning), but that if we were to do those things we would be rewarded with some sort of force field around our lives. After all, if we're going to go to all that trouble to be good, we're entitled to something for it.

But let's face it, we can't really be good. We might never show any anger or aggression, but we can't stop ourselves from feeling bitterness or resentment, or maybe even worse from feeling numb. We might be able to train ourselves not to swear, but we'd have a hard time not cursing someone silently at some point. And we can certainly make a habit of going to church on Sundays, but there's nothing fundamentally different about a church building and a movie theatre or place of business. To try to manufacture this type of "good" is not only tiring and frustrating, it's impossible.

This is where Christian spirituality departs from all other major religions. It recognizes without argument that we can't really be good just by trying. So Jesus shows up on earth and says, "I've come so you can have real and eternal life, more and better than you ever dreamed of." In other words, a good and lasting life. He then goes on to show how this is possible. You really have to read the book, it's quite interesting.

But, one might be thinking, bad things certainly happen to Christians. Certainly; I can personally attest to that. In fact, Jesus guaranteed they would. He said, "In this world you will have trouble." That's pretty clear. Christians have neither had their humanity removed, nor have they been removed from this present state of being, so it makes perfect sense that even in the midst of Jesus teaching them to live a better life, disaster can and will strike to a greater or lesser degree.

The really fascinating part comes after Jesus' guarantee. He says, "But take heart, for I have overcome the world." Marx would have tagged this as an opiate, and I can see why. Jesus freely acknowledges that the world is no good and that even his own followers are going to have problems, but then goes on to encourage them in the knowledge that he has already taken care of everything regardless of what happens in this life, and even suggests there will be a time and place without such a thing as trouble. But, unlike an opiate which wears off in time, Jesus said his words will never pass away. So, he is sort of like an opiate that never wears off...only without the drawbacks of being a heavy narcotic and with the added bonus of being the truth. I can take heart in that.