Grammar matters. So does spelling. The suffix “tion”, to choose one word ending, changes verbs into nouns. Words such as abbreviation (abbreviate), conservation (conserve), and extension (extend) are just a few examples. Just an addition of four letters can transform an action into something stationary or into some condition.
Wouldn’t it be nice if there was some simple addition or deletion that could easily change us? Plug in a four number or letter code and, “Presto!”, we are now the person whom we wish to be or some other is now the one we desire that other to be.
The change that occurs in people is a change that takes place over a lifetime. This change is most often hard work. Life has a way of changing us as events strike and we react. Many times our reaction might even put us on a different path than we have been traveling. Sometimes our reaction may just be a slight course correction and we move on only slightly touched. Other times, the entire trajectory upon which our life’s course has been headed has altered drastically.
Faith has a way of changing us. Perhaps a better word then changing would be forming. Faith has a way of forming who we are and whom we are becoming. We don’t think of this too often as we trudge off to worship, pray our daily prayers, read scripture or reach out to receive a piece of bread at communion and gurgle down a sip of wine. By themselves each act typically does not alter us in any meaningful way. On the other hand, done over a lifetime such routine acts become formative.
Faith, like life, can also be hard work especially as it connects with our life and the moments of struggle and times of joy that we experience throughout our lifetime. With us it is most often the opposite of our friendly little suffix “tion”. With us we tend to go from noun or condition to verb, that is, to action. Life can move us in this way as our emotions are stirred and we sense a need to do something. Faith can also move us in this way as we experience a wrong to us or some other and become motivated to correct or heal this wrong.
Life matters. Faith matters. They seem to matter most and best when connected in relationship. When faith is ethereal and tends to put such a warm, positive spin on everything, it denies our very humanity. It denies life. When faith is able to doubt even in the midst of trusting, when faith is able to hurt or become angry, faith is able to connect with life and help us through until it is also able to heal.
This is why Christians find solace, comfort, and hope in the cross. There hung a God who was more than a few pious platitudes. There hung a God who knew the depths of human suffering to the point of being willing to suffer with us. There hung a God who experienced the vicissitudes of life which can bring change in an instant. There hung a God who knows life matters. There hung a God who gives us faith to connect with this life, this very human life. Here is one more grammatical switch. What if instead of hung I used the word hangs? The God of the past becomes one who is and does the same God of Jerusalem’s Calvary.
You and I are changed over a lifetime. Without such change we would become older, bitter, and feel left out as life’s inevitable changes pass us by. You and I have no easy way on our road to constantly becoming a new person. There are no simple letters that work an easy transformation. You and I have Jesus Christ, a companion on our becoming, a healer who understands well the experiences of life. As we move on from this Easter season in the church, this is our resurrection; that is we move from resurrect, a verb into resurrection; a new state of being for us. In Christ we are constantly being made new. Faith in Christ matters.