Reading Robert Frost's "Mending Wall" always reminds me of God and I. I remember reading it in college during Dr. Foreman's literature class and thinking about God and I walking on either side of a crumbling wall, picking up stones and putting them back. When I thought about it, God and I were always talking about something awesome as we piled stones, like how cool Donald Miller is or how uncertain life is. But after I finished the poem, I realized that this poem wasn't about God and I at all.
You see, in the poem, the poet and his neighbor meet on each side of a wall every Spring to pick up displaced stones. They put all of the fallen stones back into place; hence, fixing the wall that seperates their properties. At the end of the poem, the neighbor says "Good Fences Make Good Neighbors." In fact, the neighbor says that a few other times as well. He's a little obsessed with the idea. And God, the God I love and serve, is neither obsessed with fences, nor does He like them.
In fact, my God has been knocking down fences for as long as any of you have existed. In the Old Testament, when Adam and Eve sinned, a wall was placed between them and God due to God's utter holiness and man's sin. But God didn't like this wall at all. He liked walking with his children in the garden, no guard railes between He and them, and this now-existent wall, made Him sad like a loving Father and furious like a jealous lover. He was being barred from the creation He loved due to His perfect character and man's now flawed nature. God made a plan right away to knock down that pesky wall and again be one with his creatures; that plan was Jesus. Until that plan came into action, God knocked down the wall in different ways. He had the Isrealites make sacrifices for thier sins and repent when they turned away, and time and time again, God forgave his people. No matter how many times His people turned away from Him, God loved them, all the while hating the wall that separated them.
The wall got in the way of relationship, so God pulled out all the stops to keep communing with His people; he knew who they were, for He made them, but He wanted to show them who He was. God showed his children wonders, interacted with them as much as possible, and gave signs and symbols to show them who He was whilst the wall seperated them. He divided the Red Sea, sent angels, showed pieces of his glory, sent food from heaven for his people...anything and everything to continue interacting with the ones He loved. He yearned for them to get to know Him, to see Him, to glory in Him, for knowing God (not just knowing about Him) is what He knew would help those He loved so. Knowing Him, Interacting with Him--this was the way for His children to understand love themselves, really the way to understand everything. Relationship is what our Father longed for everyday, knowing that his children did not always feel the same. They didn't feel the same because when the wall was bulit, when sin entered the world, they started thinking that things other than Relationship with the Maker would fulfill them---sex, having children, idols, keeping jewish law, etc and ad infinitum.
Finally, God enacted "the plan." He sent his own son, Jesus, to die for these sinners, these children who had so often forgotten Him. Jesus was a part of God himself, and since he was God, he could live a sinless life and hence do what Adam&Eve could not, and since he was man, he could be a second Adam&Eve, one who lived correctly. Jesus was killed for sins he did not commit; he took God's children's punishment so that the wall could be smashed. While Jesus breathed his last breaths, man's sin was thrust upon Him so that he could pay for it, and, for the first time, Jesus felt a wall between He and his Father---the same wall that had divided man and God for so very long. It was excruciating for Jesus&the Father. But when Jesus died and rose again, that wall was smashed. The plan worked. The temple curtain was ripped in two; God and man could once again be in real relationship without a divider! How wonderful!
So here we are, in the age of A.D., and sometimes it doesn't feel like God and us are in relationship. Sometimes, it feels like there is still this wall in the Christian life. Why is that? You see, often, it's we Christians who build the wall back up. We keep telling God the wall is still up when we look at our sin instead of at Him. We don't think He&Jesus were strong enough to smash such a sin wall as our own. We delude ourselves into thinking that the wall still exists and then find the misplaced stones and start putting them back. We start saying, "Look God, I can fulfill this law. I can do this in my own strength. I can commune with You now that I'm mentoring this gal." Fill in the blanks.
And while we're trying to earn God's love, we're diminishing Jesus' sacrifice, often saying two seemingly contradictory things at the same time (1) "My sin is too big for Jesus. The wall that separates us is still there, God!" and (2) "I can help tear the wall down by doing good things without you. I must do them without you because I want to talk to you once I'm all better and not before."
But the kicker is, when we say Jesus isn't big enough for our sin, for our walls, and decide that we can help God in our own strength, we put ourselves in front of Jesus and only add to the divide by ignoring Him. Jesus is the only way! No man comes to the Father except through Him. God has smashed the wall through Jesus. And when you try to "earn" your way without Jesus, you add stones to the wall, the one that isn't even actually there, barring yourself from the Father until you find yourself "all better," which is not going to happen in this life. We remain His broken children in a sincerely messed-up world, and we must accept the fact that the best place to be is in Jesus' arms rather than frantically working to earn things we can't even comprehend. Frantically picking up achievements without God is the same as frantically picking up stones.
The thing is, though we do, as Christians, sometimes, rebuild our own walls, we don't enjoy them! No person enjoys separating themselves from God; we just sometimes think we need to "struggle through" in order to be worthy of Jesus in the first place. But we will never be worthy, and that is the point. Jesus' gift was unconditional. This relationship with God is not an equal partnership, and the more we accept that, the more we can just rejoice in the fact that the wall is gone. We were not made for struggling to earn love. We were made for accepting the love given us.
In the poem "Mending Wall," the poet says the famous line: "Something there is that doesn't love a wall." God doesn't like them. And deep down, we don't either. If you are a Christian, look around you and realize that the wall has already been knocked down by someone way more powerful than you. Stop trying to "fix things" that God has called "no longer broken" through Jesus' blood.
And if you aren't a Christian, I challenge you to think about this God who hates that wall--the one that you feel separating you from all of the meaning you long for but can't grasp.
When nightfall comes, Christian, and you feel like becoming better so God will love you, stop and revel in the love because it's already there.
And when nightfall comes, NonChristian, stop and revel in the love that's already there, the love you're afraid to embrace for fear you don't deserve it.
None of us do. And that's the beauty of it.
And while we're trying to earn God's love, we're diminishing Jesus' sacrifice, often saying two seemingly contradictory things at the same time (1) "My sin is too big for Jesus. The wall that separates us is still there, God!" and (2) "I can help tear the wall down by doing good things without you. I must do them without you because I want to talk to you once I'm all better and not before."
But the kicker is, when we say Jesus isn't big enough for our sin, for our walls, and decide that we can help God in our own strength, we put ourselves in front of Jesus and only add to the divide by ignoring Him. Jesus is the only way! No man comes to the Father except through Him. God has smashed the wall through Jesus. And when you try to "earn" your way without Jesus, you add stones to the wall, the one that isn't even actually there, barring yourself from the Father until you find yourself "all better," which is not going to happen in this life. We remain His broken children in a sincerely messed-up world, and we must accept the fact that the best place to be is in Jesus' arms rather than frantically working to earn things we can't even comprehend. Frantically picking up achievements without God is the same as frantically picking up stones.
The thing is, though we do, as Christians, sometimes, rebuild our own walls, we don't enjoy them! No person enjoys separating themselves from God; we just sometimes think we need to "struggle through" in order to be worthy of Jesus in the first place. But we will never be worthy, and that is the point. Jesus' gift was unconditional. This relationship with God is not an equal partnership, and the more we accept that, the more we can just rejoice in the fact that the wall is gone. We were not made for struggling to earn love. We were made for accepting the love given us.
In the poem "Mending Wall," the poet says the famous line: "Something there is that doesn't love a wall." God doesn't like them. And deep down, we don't either. If you are a Christian, look around you and realize that the wall has already been knocked down by someone way more powerful than you. Stop trying to "fix things" that God has called "no longer broken" through Jesus' blood.
And if you aren't a Christian, I challenge you to think about this God who hates that wall--the one that you feel separating you from all of the meaning you long for but can't grasp.
When nightfall comes, Christian, and you feel like becoming better so God will love you, stop and revel in the love because it's already there.
And when nightfall comes, NonChristian, stop and revel in the love that's already there, the love you're afraid to embrace for fear you don't deserve it.
None of us do. And that's the beauty of it.
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