Magnificent

I took a walk tonight. A cold, clear, still moonlit night. The air seems particularly clean and clear on a night like this. Down past the Seminary, through the College Commons, past the high school, in between the Parish buildings. It is good to be cold, to feel, to be alive.

As I walked up our lawn, frozen, icy grass crackling underfoot I spied a piece of my handiwork from Sunday. A 10 by 5 inch patch of gleaming copper above our doorway. I had spent a good part of the day stripping, scraping and buffing and it shone in the moonlight.

It reminded me of our lives. We come into this world already spattered by the mire and gore of sin, we add more and more layers until we come to Christ. Then, with His guarantee of complete cleansing He starts us on the laborious task of stripping and chipping and scraping the filth, the sin off. I fall and spatter myself with more dirt. I sigh, pick up my scraper and start chipping away again.

But that's what faith is. Of course God gives us faith and faith is a choice we make, but it is also an act, indeed an activity that we pursue daily. With time it becomes simpler, more normal but it never, ever becomes easy. If we are diligent and seek after holiness then eventually by God's grace some of the pure, new metal shines through. Then people can see something other than our sin, they can see through in spots to who we really are, who we are becoming.

And then at the end, when we pass from this world into the next and come before God he will strip away all of the ugliness that is left and we will stand gleaming for all to see. That day will be cool. No not cool, cool is such a smug, sophomoric word.

That day will be magnificent.