Sunday, August 3, 2008

Legacy

Practicing law leaves one with a healthy respect for history, for the former things, for the roots of the law. Whether the history is case law, statutory law, or executive order, and whether I agree with the premises of those laws or not, the canon is significant. Lay people know in peculiar ways that some laws are preposterous. On the other hand, whether we agree or not, we are all, lay and legal types, bound to live under them. In a free country such as this republic for which we wobble, we can speak out against laws, against persons, and ideas. This proposition is what lead to the two party political system we have today. It is why there are pro-life and pro-choice camps; it explains the pro-death penalty groups and anti-death penalty groups. We are free to choose, so far.



In considering history, and the choices we've made, we leave our pasts, our records. The intangible notion of our reputation will not be buried with us. They remain to speak of us. How then should we live? Dare we ask? Is that our place to question? Aren't we open-minded folk? Does how we live really count? Why should we care?

Save for the fact that truth matters, lives well lived matter, character counts, integrity is of utmost importance, there are no other reasons. But to whom do we turn when those platitudes fail us, when we have exchanged the truth for a lie, when we have failed miserably, when our character is tainted by our behavior, and when our integrity is marred by our gross misdeeds?

I submit we cannot turn to our selves, to our loved histories, our pride in territory, our collective patriotism, our flags, nation-states, ecological sensitivities, all of which compose our deeds. We must bow, and right well on our faces- submit to the one true God as revealed in the person of Jesus Christ. His legacy-his sinless life, his perfect substitutionary death and his glorious resurrection this is the only one through which there is lasting hope.

What type legacy the church leaves in this generation seems to be bound up in her work. Her work is not to love and minister for the sake of ministry's goodness and rightness, but for the sake of the Gospel- which is to cast a net and save the lost, with the awfulness of the truth- while we were yet sinners, Christ died for us. (Romans 5:8)
The receipt of life eternal does not flow from accomplished works, but works flow from the life eternal freely given.

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