These last few months where the world has been effectively on pause has been a huge strain on so many of us. In Iowa, things are gradually starting to resume and life is starting to have a normal sense of flow again. People are out in their yards, walking on sidewalks and enjoying conversations with their neighbors, going back to work… personally, it’s all very relieving to see.
That’s not to say that the shutdown was an entire waste, even if in the worst case, it was a largely misguided and poorly executed effort. Out of necessity, I think, the shutdown became a time of reflection for many, to the destruction of some and the building up of others. The wheels had stopped turning, and all that kept us occupied ground to a halt. As I talked to people, it became obvious that without the constant bustle of commerce, anxieties bubbled freely to the surface of our chronically preoccupied minds. I know for me, I couldn’t help but explore the question:
“What is it all for?”
Earthly Prosperity
“Do not lay up for yourselves treasures on earth, where moth and rust destroy and where thieves break in and steal..."
One unique feature of humanity that sets us apart is that we are cursed with perpetual awareness of the risk contained in the future. We all gradually become aware of the suffering that comes from lack and harsh circumstances. In part, this is what drives us to work. In one sense, our jobs are how we stave off the potential chaos of the future by accepting a contractual obligation to exchange labor for resources. This ensures to varying degrees that our resources will not dry up, granted that we use said resources efficiently and effectively.
The problem is now plainly evident that this conceptual bubble of financial protection is shaky at best. There are obvious examples of this: The Great Depression, the housing market crash of 2008, and of course, our current predicament. Resources are by nature finite, so it follows that our economic contracts are in peril too. This makes our work at best a shifting hope; it cannot guarantee future prosperity.
So what do we do? Politically right-minded folks will state that we should entrust our potential future prosperity to the hands of the individual; it comes to those who work for it. Of course our current state has made it plain that, while this may bear fruit for a season, circumstances break into our experience that are beyond our control that lay our hard work, our savings, and yes, our hopes, to waste. Perhaps the value of the dollar will dry up. What then?
This presents just as much a problem to a more politically left-minded citizen, who must hope that the sovereign hand of the state will dispense resources fairly. In this case too, prolonged closures result in the same devastation: the prolonged halting of production will still destroy countless resources that will never reach hungry mouths.
Ultimately, though advances in technology have resulted in massive increases in output of resources, famine is still but a crisis away. It has been less than a hundred years since the last one. Isn't it fair to assume that it is only a matter of time before another takes place?
Heavenly Prosperity
"but lay up for yourselves treasures in heaven, where neither moth nor rust destroys and where thieves do not break in and steal...”
One way we could succinctly summarize all of this is to say that we collectively experience life on Earth as though it is under a curse; at best, our efforts to prepare a certain, prosperous future are not guaranteed, and must be brought about through difficult, often painful long-term sacrifice.
By contrast, whatever heavenly treasure might be indicated by this saying of Jesus, the only specificity we are given is that it is incorruptible. At first glance this might seem of little relevance, since we cannot observe anything that survives the passage of time and the effects of decay, but in fact, that is exactly it. After all, what is heavenly is not imminent; it is the dwelling place of God. Another way of saying it is that they are where ultimate reality is.
Heavenly resources cannot be threatened by the creative evils of human imagination, because at the very least, they reside perpetually in the untapped potential of possibility. "In him are hidden all the treasures of wisdom and knowledge."(Col. 2:3.) This is less plain when we try to imagine the heavenly realm, where the Lord Jesus is seated at the right hand of the Father, since such a place is not something we cannot conceive of in truth. But we can see these treasures in part through the benefits bestowed upon us by virtue of the Holy Spirit, who is "the down payment of our inheritance, until the redemption of the possession, to the praise of his glory."(Eph. 1:14.) Through the outpouring of Christ's Spirit into our hearts, we see in an ever clearer way the mysterious glories of the cross, at once the symbol of true authority, true love, and real treasure.
Bearing The Cross "For where your treasure is, there your heart will be also." By imitating Christ to whatever small degrees that they have, generations of saints have brought restoration, healing and flourishing to bear on from the ancient world until now. This work of bringing the potential of heaven to bear upon the earth continued on as ages passed, gradually bringing the world out of the darkness typified by Roman rule, whose endless campaigns assumed that "might makes right", even if the revealing of a better world seemed painfully slow and accompanied by lingering evil, we now see possibility manifested more clearly than we ever have.
And so today, just as Christ embodied true authority by "enduring the cross", we imitate that endurance and proclaim His authority to the degree that we obey Him by "taking up our crosses daily", sacrificing the expedient pleasures of the present for the hard road denying ourselves for the sake of others. Yet in this we see there is hidden glory, pleasure, and life; the death we so readily fear is outweighed and outlasted by the potential blessings waiting to be revealed that God bestows upon the world through our imitation of His Son.
It is in that way, I think, that heavenly resources are more real than temporal resources. As the kingdom of God grows "like a mustard seed" over the course of history by our daily dying, we have and will be able to look back over history and see that the potential good has far outshined even the brightness of our origins, and one day yet we will pass from the cultivating of cursed resources, into a city whose wealth will never run dry, and whose light will never burn out.
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