And what more shall I say?  For time would fail me to tell of Gideon, Barak, Samson, Jephthah, of David and Samuel and the prophets – who through faith conquered kingdoms, enforced justice, obtained promises, stopped the mouths of lions, quenched the power of fire, escaped the edge of the sword, were made strong out of weakness, became mighty in war, put foreign armies to flight.  Women received back their dead by resurrection.  Some were tortured, refusing to accept release, so that they might rise again to a better life.  Others suffered mocking and flogging, and even chains and imprisonment.  They were stoned, they were sawn in two, they were killed with the sword.  They went about in skins of sheep and goats, destitute, afflicted, mistreated – of whom the world was not worthy – wandering about in deserts and mountains, and in dens and caves of the earth.  And all these, though commended through their faith, did not receive what was promised, since God had provided something better for us, that apart from us they should not be made perfect.

If time failed the writer of Hebrews (who did not shrink from observations on the nature of angels and the symbolism of the first section of the temple) to treat with the remaining accounts of the heroes of faith in the Scriptures, we also must examine them, so to speak, with an eye on the clock.  The allure of Rick’s exhortation to immerse ourselves in 1 Corinthians as a church body is becoming stronger by the week, and I have swirling around in my head many thoughts from the sermon series that may not be ignored.  And DV they will not be left merely to swirl around, but will be brought to bear in these Discipleship Notes.  The way we order our lives around the Word ought to show forth the singleness of our purpose and calling.  But we need to finish with Hebrews 11 before we take the plunge, and as we do so I think we will find that the beautiful postlude with which the writer concludes his thoughts on faith may intersect well with this week’s vision of the brokenness and glory of the Church Catholic.

I love to go to the beach.  Growing up in a homeschooling family we discovered that if we started studies a little earlier in the year, we could find a half-priced beach house for a week in September when the beach was a lot less crowded.  As long as we could dodge the hurricanes and cold weather, it worked out pretty well.  Continuing the tradition with my own family as often as time and means permit, that time has always been a restorative one for me.  I bring a stack or so (literally) of books that I have been meaning to read all year long, and very early in the week my wife faithfully rescues me from my absorption in them and draws me into engagement with my family and friends to walk beside the water and pick up shells and talk, which I reluctantly admit was the real reason for going to the beach all along.  The delight at the prospect of a whole week with no more agenda than the books you are going to read is only able to be surpassed by the pleasure of being pursued by someone who loves you and who enjoys your company (between the which there can truly be drawn no distinction).  Perhaps one of these years I will mature to the point where I can engage in relationship when I am at leisure without needing to be enticed into it.  My weird family dynamics aside, however, I found myself thinking this weekend about picking up shells.

The selective process involved with choosing a shell is critical to me for two reasons: a) I have small children who require an incredible amount of accessories to go to the beach, which limits the space available for transporting treasures; and b) not just any shell will do.  It has to be unique, something that catches my eye and makes me feel that nobody else on the beach could have found one quite like this one.  I have to be able to give it to my wife and say, “Look what I found!” and approach the same level of enjoyment that was evoked when I proudly presented my mom with that battered fragment of Queen Anne’s Lace in preschool.  This is the test I must satisfy: Does the shell truly impart the depth of feeling I desire to convey?  Or does it fall short?

As I look down the list of all those who made it into Christianity’s Hall of Fame, I wonder what in the world God’s criteria must be.  What was it about these men and women that vaulted them to the top of the annals of church history?  We know that there is no partiality with God.  How then was this motley assortment of rogues, hookers, swindlers, deserters, filicides, drunkards, and adulterers ever put together in any capacity with which God would be willing to associate himself?  It almost seems as if there is partiality with God – except for Enoch, who was so super-spiritual that he always comes off as benignly annoying, and evidently he must have to God too – because it seems as if God went out and purposefully chose all the rascals and losers as his archetypal examples of faith!  I find it hard to believe that he did not exercise more care in choosing examples of what following Jesus looks like, even than I do choosing shells on the beach.  Were the sporadic feats of spiritual valor these people accomplished in their lives the deciding factor, since their sins would otherwise have disqualified them for the prize?

The answer of the Bible to this hopeful supposition, however, may be surprising.  In Romans we are informed that “All have turned aside; together they have become worthless; no one does good, not even one.”  This is not a meaningless self-deprecation on the part of the apostle.  This is a statement about the way we behaved in the Garden (trading life for death, and God for self, and naked glory for hidden shame), the way we behaved before we knew Christ (in the loss of our free will we could not even merit acknowledgment as a worthy enemy, but only the pitying “they know not what they do”), and the way we behave even after we have walked with Jesus for many years (for I do not do what I want, but I do the very thing I hate).  It is the truth we tell about ourselves when we confess our sin every Sunday, and it is the reason we weep over the brokenness of the world: because we ourselves share in that brokenness in our bodies and souls, and like Patton on the field of battle, God help us, we love it.  And we know that God has chosen us for no better reason than that he loved us; and those two ideas will never be able to meet, in my mind at least.

If it’s as bad as all that, then I suppose the emotion God must feel when he picks us up like shells off the beach must be so far from the thrill of admiration I find myself seeking, that it is scarcely able to be compared.  Or is it?  If by itself no single member of the body can accomplish the purpose for which its selection was intended, does that preclude the harmony that those members may enjoy when they are finally brought together?  Is it possible that we were not picked up merely for our own beauty, but for the beauty of that into which we were destined to be made?  I think we must draw a distinction here, and take care that it be the distinction that God himself draws for us in Scripture.  If through faith I conquer a kingdom, or stop the mouth of a lion, or I am tortured and refuse to be released so as to gain a better resurrection, and the only result is that I am nicely set down in the chronicles of the PCA for my own personal bravery, then like the rulers of this age I have truly come to nothing.  But if together with my brothers and sisters in the Lord I labor in prayer, and if together with them I observe the Sacrament faithfully, and if I obey and rejoice and sin and repent and laugh and weep and live and die as part of this local body of Christ, I know that God’s will is being done through me, and that the depth of feeling he desires to express through my life is thus being conveyed in the most glorious way imaginable.  Why do you think it is that Hebrews 11 is not about one person?  Christ is the fulfillment of all things, but if it was not good for the first Adam to be alone, neither was it for the second.  For this reason Christ had to be made like his brothers in every way, in order that he might become a merciful and faithful high priest in service to God, and that he might make atonement for the sins of the people.

The apostle says that They were stoned, They were sawn in two, They were killed with the sword.  They went about in skins of sheep and goats, destitute, afflicted, mistreated – the world was not worthy of Them – wandering about in deserts and mountains, and in dens and caves of the earth.  Not He or She, but They.  This is not the story of shells on a beach.  It is the story of a people as numerous as the sands on the seashore.  Although in the humility of faith you and I find ourselves to only be individual grains of that sand, and though in church history Holy Cross may not amount to any more of a sandcastle than an upturned bucket can give you, even so this is our story too; and together with them we will be caught up in that final flood (ever so much greater than the sum of its parts) that feeds the trees by the bank of the river, and we will pass on to the Sea, and be part of that stream that flows from the throne of God and of the Lamb.  Though our Church rests on the foundation built by the saints of old, yet we are told that only together with us were they to be made perfect.  Only together with our proclamation of Christ’s Gospel is God pleased to accomplish the fulfillment of what they did as they looked forward to Christ’s work.  Only when the fullness of the Gentiles has been brought into the glorious inheritance of the Jews will God step back and say, “Look what I made!”  And for the first time since Eden there will be a world worthy of Us, of what we will become in Christ, and that world will be very good.

For the shell Botticelli chose to pick up off the beach falls far short (in its subtle syncretism) of depicting the true character of love and also, therefore, of lasting beauty.  Nature with all its splendor cannot bear up under the weight of the glory of the Bride of Christ if she is speaking forth the eternal beauty of a pagan goddess.  If this world groans with the children of God it must also be redeemed with us, and our betrothal spurns all others’ claims on admittance to the marriage supper of the Lamb.  Casting aside the fading beauty of individualism, then, in the presence of such a great cloud of witnesses let us together fix our eyes on Jesus, the author and perfecter of our faith.

Author: Jeremy Vogan

My name is Jeremy Vogan. I live in Staunton, VA with my wife and four kids. I love to write, and seek to honestly explore the intellectual and emotional implications of following Jesus as a deeply broken person in a twisted, cruel world that is full of veiled beauty and meaning. Writing is part of how I faithfully look for Jesus Christ to someday make all things new. I'd enjoy hearing your feedback! JV