Smeagol is Free!
A hermitudinal view of...stuff...


8.11.2006  

Hymn

The church's one foundation
Is Jesus Christ her Lord,
She is His new creation
By water and the Word.
From heaven He came and sought her
To be His holy bride;
With His own blood He bought her,
And for her life He died.

Elect from every nation,
Yet one over all the earth;
Her charter of salvation,
One Lord, one faith, one birth;
One holy Name she blesses,
Partakes one holy food,
And to one hope she presses,
With every grace endued.

Mid toil and tribulation,
And tumult of her war,
She waits the consummation
Of peace forevermore;
'Til, with the vision glorious,
Her longing eyes are blessed,
And the great church victorious
Shall be the church at rest.

Yet she on earth hath union
With God the Three in One,
And mystic sweet communion
With those whose rest is won.
O happy ones and holy!
Lord, give us grace that we
Like them, the meek and lowly,
On high may dwell with Thee.


That hymn, The Church's One Foundation, penned by Samuel Stone, has been in my head for the past couple of hours. As I ponder the rich truth of those words, I find that my soul redounds with what I perceive there.

Christ sought us to be His holy bride, bought us with His own blood, and died that we might live. There is a love there that goes beyond the sterile confines of my finite mind, and it screams out with a patience and passion I'm far too quick to dismiss. Christ sought us! He purchased us! He died for our lives! And yet, I am so slow to understand my Lord's love for me, so hesitant to accept the glorious joy of such mercy. Praise God that He is patient with me, pursuing me still with a love far more patient and passionate than I know or dare to hope for.

In the midst of such pursuit, we press on toward Him in grace-saturated hope. He alone is our hope, He alone is our desire. Oh, to have my heart purged of other desires! Lewis was right when he said, "We are far too easily pleased!" One Lord, one faith, one birth; if I truly learned to hope only in Christ, then the Lord would not need to shatter all the desires of my heart, for He would then be the desire of my heart.

Yet He knows my frame, and He is mindful that I am but dust. He knows I long for Him, He knows I toil in the midst of trial and tribulation, fears and failure. Do I long for the battle against sin to be over? Yes! Do I long to be done laboring upon this earth, laboring ceaselessly against an enemy who grants no quarter, whom I might defeat but never kill? An enemy, I sometimes fear, I see as me? Yes, I long to be done, to be at rest.

But is there not rest in Christ, even now? Is there not union with God in Christ, a union that takes sinners dead and undignified and makes them holy, alive, and restored to glorious dignity with Christ, her Savior? Yes, there is. Even now, there is unity. Even now, we are His holy bride, His inheritance, His beloved. We are the church, with Christ as our foundation, a new creation for whom He longs with all the affection that eternity cannot hope to hold, an affection rooted in the glory whose praise the heavens shall witness for eternity.

posted by Bolo | 10:50 PM
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