Pretension Busters: Agony

www.despair.com --"Increasing success by lowering expectations" (so much like the Old Adam and the Old Eve)

Arrogance cannot be avoided or true hope be present

unless the judgment of condemnation is feared in every work

--Martin Luther

(Heidelberg Disputation, Thesis 11)

We were pregnant, we strained,

we gave birth, as it were, to wind.

We cannot produce deliverance on the earth;

people to populate the world are not born.

^{Isaiah 26:18}

^{In his great book: The Denial of Death, Ernest Becker names the fear--the reality--that everyone MUST come to grips with but studiously avoids--that is, every life ends in death. This fear, this reality brings about a condition that Becker names our "Generative Death Anxiety." He then goes on to demonstrate how our cultures--our religions--are fashioned to help us cope with this very specific anxiety by covering it up and keeping it out of mind. We work very hard, endure great sacrifice, and use force and coercion to maintain those cultural and religious drapes over our Generative Death Anxiety.}

^{Our agony comes when specific tenets of our culture or of our religion come under challenge from some competitor. This competitor can be another culture or religion; it can be reason or science; or, God himself can be the source of challenge and confrontation. When gripped by the realization that the "old ways" are not viable any longer, when the covering is ripped off of our Generative Death Anxiety and we are skewered by the sharp point of mortality salience and, when we no longer can coerce or enforce our cultural or religious death-denial mechanisms, then lament is ripped from our throats and in agony we confess our condition.}

^{But... Thanks be to God that he has heard the cries of his people and has come down to deliver them! (Exodus 3:7-8) Jesus Christ, the very Son of God born of woman, came into the world, entered the reality of humanity's Generative Death Anxiety, and experienced the sharp end of mortality salience--only to be vindicated by God raising him from the dead. (Isaiah 53:4) Joined with him as we are by baptism into his death and resurrection (Romans 6:3-4), we no longer have death awaiting us at life's end. Death is behind us for we have been drowned in the waters of baptism--sinners killed by the just judgment of the Word of God. Therefore, since our life is now Christ (Galatians 2:20) and he is raised from the dead nevermore to die again (Romans 6:9), Generative Death Anxiety no longer afflicts us and the sharp pointed end of mortality salience has become a comfortable resting place.}

^{For to me, to live is Christ, and to die is gain.}

^{Philippians 1:21}