An old Talking Heads song repeats the line, "We're on a road to nowhere." One cannot look at the world and argue much with that rather nihilistic sentiment. Has technology made us happier, much less better people? Have our advances changed our nature from base survival instinct into self-sacrifice out of love for "the other"? Do we treat waiters and waitresses better now that we are civilized?
And yet...
A handful of people around the world are opening themselves every day to receiving the grace of God on a path that leads beyond nowhere. We know that technology is not going to make us better, only Christ. We are sure that the challenge to love our neighbor as ourselves is worthwhile if only because the call is sacred. We treat everyone we meet with respect, not out of a response to our so-called civilized ways, but because the person next to me, whomever that person might be, is created the same way I was created... In the image of God. And unless I am mistaken, the whole point of the life of the Jesus-follower is to be shaped in the image and likeness of Christ. That's it.
"And just as we have borne the image of the earthly man, so shall we bear the image of the heavenly man." (1 Corinthians 15:49)
Speaking of being a part of the shaping of the new creation... to sum it all up... broken record time... here's more from Thomas Merton:
"This is clearly one of the most important and inescapable messages of the Bible: that unless man turns from his idols to God, he will destroy himself, or rather this idolatry will prove itself to be his destruction. (The idolater is already self-destroyed.) The other thing: man as a whole will not change. He will destroy himself. The Bible sees no other end to the story. But Christ has come to save from this destruction all who seek to be saved. In and through them He will recreate the world."
And here we are. We are not only a part of God's new creation, but we actually participate with God in creating it. Every time we love our neighbor, every time we distinguish between the present world and the eternal world, every time we come together in the name of Jesus, something else is being created that transcends the road to nowhere.
