Yesterday I had the privilege of attending the wedding of Ty and Jacqueline, two friends and fellow members of the Soma family. Pastor Steve presided over the ceremony, which was a dignified, minimalist affair with little of the pageantry that one often associates with weddings. When Steve spoke, I understood the reason for the restrained, reverential air of the proceedings. The ceremony, he explained, is not ultimately about two people getting married. Rather, it is about the love of God, of which marriage is a reflection. To illustrate his point, Steve read a passage from the Book of Lamentations selected by the bride and groom. Lamentations, as you may know, is a meditation on the unavoidable disappointments of our daily existence, to include the disappointments that arise when two people elect to form what can only be called an imperfect union. Steve’s reminder served to temper the idealization of marriage as the ultimate state of bliss. Marriage, in fact, points to an even higher state of communion, that between God and human, and one made possible by an act of divine atonement. Marriage is two people called into obedience, into mutual submission and self-sacrifice. But the submission and self-sacrifice are not burdensome, but rather celebratory. Obedience and joy are complementary, not incompatible.
This, I think, is a curious collision of ideas: joy and obedience. Isn’t joy supposed to be liberating, not limiting? How can joy be anything other than the realization of one’s own aspirations? Why should I concern myself with divine things, when human life is rooted in the mundane, when the author of the universe is busy attending to his other plans and perhaps to other people that are more messed up than I am?
The troubles of obedience are nothing new. In Exodus 19-20, God descends on Mt. Sinai and reveals the Ten Commandments to his people. The revelation is a solemn, terrifying event for all involved. Writes the author: “When the people saw the thunder and lightning and heard the trumpet and saw the mountain in smoke, they trembled with fear” (20:18). The Hebrews are afraid that God’s majestic presence will annihilate all who stand before him. Moses attempts to provide reassurance, explaining that “God has come to test you, so that the fear of God will be with you to keep you from sinning” (20:20). Is obedience thus wedded with fear, and can fear alone ensure faithfulness to God’s commandments? The Hebrews answer this question in Exodus 32, which recounts the infamous golden calf incident. While Moses is with God on Mt. Sinai, the Israelites question God’s provision and long to place their faith in something else. In the text, Aaron’s creation of the golden calf is associated with revelry and self-indulgence. The idol thus represents an excuse for returning to the familiar cult of hedonism, in which a self-centered vanity seemingly offers comfort against the impossible demands of an absentee deity who dwells on mountaintops, far above the groans of his ostensibly “chosen” people.
It is easy to scoff at the foolishness of the Hebrews. A golden calf, really? And when Yahweh has redeemed these idiots from oppression in Egypt? Can’t they be a bit more grateful? Yet I cannot ignore the analogy to my own life. Christ has redeemed me, has overseen my exodus from the existential chaos that once governed me, a state which could be properly described as slavery to the crushing burden of my own questions. I know this, and yet I also know that most of the time I would rather admire the golden calfs of my own making, my thirst for social status chief among them. And what am I pursuing, exactly? Significance, I think. A purpose that is tangible. Better the idol I can touch and taste than the God who sits atop the mountain and points his finger of judgment at me. Can there be joy in obedience to such a God?
It turns out that Scripture has an answer to this question as well. One of the central pillar’s of Paul’s theology is that the law alone brings death rather than life. In other words, God’s moral commands reveal our transgressions, and left alone we have no ability to follow the law. Law is a burden. Obedience is a yolk that we naturally desire to cast away, just as the Hebrews did at Sinai. Even fear cannot ensure compliance, for fear is rooted in a kind of rational calculation of risk versus reward. In our fallen state, we are apt to conclude that the future consequences of our rebellion are worth what we profit in the moment. Obedience, then, must be rooted in the heart, not simply the head. Writing to the Corinthian church, Paul contrasts the OT view of obedience with the kind of obedience made possible through Christ’s reconciliation: “You show that you are a letter from Christ, the result of our ministry, written not with ink but with the Spirit of the living God, not on tablets of stone but on tablets of human hearts” (2 Corinthians 3:3). With the law written on our hearts, we receive the desire to obey, for this obedience is light and truth and joy. “We have this treasure in jars of clay,” Paul writes, “to show that this all-surpassing power is from God and not from us” (4:7). The light of the knowledge of the glory of God melts our golden calfs, revealing their empty promises. We will continuously fail in our obedience, but where there is failure there is also forgiveness, for God’s grace is big enough to cover our recalcitrance.
Joy and obedience, then, are not irreconcilable. The Psalmist sings of the joy that comes through following God’s law: “The law of the Lord is perfect, reviving the soul…The precepts of the Lord are right, giving joy to the heart…The commands of the Lord are radiant, giving light to the eyes” (Psalm 19:7-8). When I consider my own life, I recall what a mess I make of obedience, how I equate it with invasions of my own privacy and sense of control. There are recesses inside my soul that I would prefer to keep in the dark, even though this brings death, not life. Only in Christ can my eyes be unveiled. Only in Christ can I see the law for what it is: the path to joy, a true joy that sustains and gives life, that endures despite my foibles and trespasses, and that points towards the bliss we will one day enjoy when we see Christ face to face.
A Road to Emmaeus 