For you say, ‘I am rich, I have prospered, and I need nothing.’
You do not realize that you are wretched, pitiable, poor, blind, and naked.
Revelation 3:17
These are the words of the resurrected Christ to the first century Christian congregation in Laodicea, a city in Asia Minor. They are words that represent two very different takes on the truth. In one sense, both of these truths were true. Laodicea was affluent. Economically they were not in need. It was true that they had more than enough money, they were admired in their world for their accomplishments, and they weren’t looking around and seeing anything they envied. But that wasn’t the whole picture. When viewed through a different set of lenses a different picture of these people emerged. Their vision of themselves was incomplete.
Therefore, Jesus comes to them with an invitation to take in another truth as well. I would paraphrase that truth in this way: “You are so focused on what you do have that you cannot see what you don’t have. Your affluence has limited your vision. Your over-reliance on the things that make you rich and powerful in this world makes you weak. You have no savory presence in your world but are mostly lukewarm and tasteless. So, step back from your certainly, put on the lenses I will give you and you’ll be able to take in that bigger picture. Set these commodities of your affluence in context and take note of how small they are. Take note of the truth that these things which you think belong to you are nothing in comparison with the One to whom you belong.”
It’s possible to read Jesus’ letter to Laodicea and merely hear him saying “You’ve been blinded by a lie, so wake up to the truth. Renounce your lie; let me heal your disease; step into my light; begin your new life in the brightness of my everlasting truth and from this day forward all will be forever well.” This is the way we often read the Bible’s depiction of conversion: a once for all healing moment when blindness suddenly gives way to seeing. When the deep, seemingly irreversible, darkness is flooded with inextinguishable light. When all that was bad has been reversed and only the good fills our view. Wouldn’t that be great! Suddenly stepping from darkness into light and from that point on eternally singing the phrase in “Amazing Grace” about the lost being found and the blind seeing as if it is the only reality we know.
How many of us can attest to this experience: Suddenly and completely, once and for all time, delivered from the dominion of darkness and transferred into the Kingdom of God’s beloved son (Colossians 1:13)? While we can attest to experiences that foreshadow the fulness of this experience, most of us still have times when we wake up feeling like we’ll be spending the better part of our day in the pit specially dug for us by the dominion of darkness. At this point, as we shut off the alarm, what we know is that we’re going to need some help to direct our attention to the thin crack of light faintly shining at the mouth of the pit. We’ll need a reminder that the pit isn’t the only truth. We’ll need some different lenses so that we can take in what our current experience seems to want to deny us. And what those lenses help us to see is not that our darkness is a fiction, but that it is the smaller of two truths. What those lenses help us to see is that there is a world beyond the pit, that actually dwarfs the pit and helps us to remember that the pit won’t have the last word.
The Laodiceans were rich, they had prospered, they didn’t really need anything. But they were also wretched pitiable, poor, blind and naked. So, Jesus stood at the door and knocked and asked them to let him in that he might show them that he had what it would take to address the poverty they couldn’t see. He offered them the light that would dispel their darkness. He offered to prepare a feast that would be far more satisfying than the one they had prepared for themselves. The abundance they had produced wasn’t worthless, just incomplete, and Jesus, like a good optometrist, offered them some help in seeing this distinction.
Jesus’ invitation to discipleship is not something that he offers only once. “Follow me” and “Come and See” are gentle reminders that he sends our way every day. As we rise each day, he reminds us to put on our Kingdom lenses. These lenses help us to see that we belong to someone who is bigger than the things that belong to us or the malign forces that seem to want to control us. Those belongings, those forces, are nevertheless real, and we will need to deal with them. But like the hell that CS Lewis describes in The Great Divorce, these things occupy a space that fits into a small crack in a sidewalk of the Kingdom of God. They are set in the right perspective when placed next to the One who is before all things and in whom all things hold together and then we can see that this One has us firmly in his grip and has no intention of letting us go.
If we live, we live to the Lord, and if we die, we die to the Lord; so then, whether we live or whether we die, we are the Lord’s.
Romans 14:8
David Rohrer
March 6, 2021