No Rescue Here

The Woman at the Well made an off-hand comment to Jesus about “when the Messiah comes” that was totally consistent with the fervor of the times. The entire nation of Israel understood Daniel’s prophecy and that it was about time for the Messiah to come. This surely spilled over into Samaritan society, as well. Any day now, the Messiah would come and set everything right.

Of course, to set things right meant different things for different folks. For the Jewish leadership, it meant getting rid of Rome. For the Jewish peasants, it meant getting rid of the oppressive Jewish leadership, as well as Rome. And for Samaritans it meant overpowering Israel and getting their day in the sun.

There has always been a strong market for any promise of a coming rescue operation. It’s so strong that it shows up as the primary hope in literature, TV and movies. It’s the dominant theme here in America, to the point it’s in our language as “the cavalry riding to the rescue”.

Today there’s still a very powerful market for this trope. There’s an awful lot of unhappy Americans willing to pay almost anyone who offers hope for tomorrow. You can find variations on this theme on both sides of the political and social divide. Everyone is hoping the idiots on the other side will be taken down, maybe even slaughtered, and the world made right (whatever that means to them).

Some people very close to me are investing a lot of time and money in crackpot voices selling this very thing. Any day now, the cavalry will come riding to the rescue and the evil people will be destroyed.

When Jesus the Messiah came, it was nothing like anyone’s expectations. Even today we still have masses of people who don’t even understand what He did. The rescue was on a spiritual level; He opened God’s Covenant to all, instead of just one tiny nation. But the oppression of the Jewish government and Rome lingered on past His rescue. Indeed, the conflict between Judea and Rome exploded, raging for a century that saw Jerusalem destroyed and Jews forbidden to enter when it was rebuilt. That was hardly what the people were expecting.

There is a rescue coming, of course, but it will mean the end of this world, not its salvation. There will never be a time when this world is set right. It will only get worse until it ends. This world isn’t real in the first place; it’s just a simulation of sorts God is running to prove a point. And we are not the audience He is trying to educate. Rather, we are the subjects of the experiment. How do you like being a lab rat?

It’s not as if we play no part, and we certainly do have hope for a better end in Eternity. It’s just that we need to understand that we are not that important in the grander scheme of things. As long as we are deluded in thinking that we matter that much, we will never grasp what God has been doing, nor what He intends to do. Yes, He loves us, but we are not the center of His plans. We will be included in His plans to prove a point: He is unique above all others, the one and only Creator who warrants all glory and praise.

You and I warrant nothing, all the more so in our current form. As mortals, we are just a living, breathing proof of God’s contention with far higher beings. This is our role, and we need to adjust our expectations. The high privilege of participating in His glory is beyond understanding, magnanimous beyond words. There will be no substantive rescue in this life. This world is supposed to be an insufferable mess, and it surely is. Our only hope for any measure of relief is to seize the privilege of living according to divine revelation.

We do have a purpose here. Life is not meaningless. It’s just that all human ambition is inherently contrary to that purpose. There is no grand rescue in this life. The world will continue on its path to Hell, steadily getting worse. It is supposed to suck. What comes in the next life is beyond imagination. We are most fortunate to be included.