Revel as Rebellion against the Culture
So I lost track of days in February, and my post is coming on this first day of March. I generally try not to post on the Lord’s Day, but our snow day today gave me the opportunity to spend some time contemplating what I learned about *reveling* in February.
Long-time readers here at ladydusk know that Carolyn Weber is one of my favorite authors and I love her writing. Her books Surprised by Oxford and Holy is the Day were my favorite reads of 2012 and 2013 respectively. She is publishing a book of poems this month (March 2015) and while poetry is not my strong suit, I suspect I will purchase it especially because the poem she published on Valentine’s Day on her blog. The poem is about marriage, called ‘Heartened,’ and speaks so beautifully about love for and from her husband and her God. Please do go read it. It is fantastic!
I was incredibly thankful for Karen‘s guest post on Reveling in Marriage because it was so very good and complete. I’m thankful to have a wonderful marriage with Jason and that I could appreciate Karen’s insights and the way she verbalized her 21 ways to Revel in Marriage.
I loved the way Karen tied the idea to *revel* into rebelling against mediocrity in marriage. To really enjoying your spouse and your marriage.
Which lead me to consider that *revel* could be a way of rebelling against our culture.
I know that I have long enjoyed a sarcastic and cynical bent. In college, I loved the MTV show Daria. I enjoyed her her zingy comebacks and sarcastic response to almost everything. Politics, school, relationships, her cynicism knew no bounds. While I was never quite as cynical as Daria, I have shared similar cynical thoughts about our government, culture, and society, occasionally about the church. I’ve come to think of this cynicism as unhealthy.
But we are called to taste and see that the Lord is good (Psalm 34). We are called upon to love his people. We can *rebel* against our culture by *reveling* in the Lord’s goodness. We don’t have to fit into our culture. We can still call our government officials into account. We can do so by behaving in a joyful way, in a way of reliance upon the goodness of our God. Rebel against the culture by reveling in God’s goodness.
We also rebel against our culture when we revel in our marriages. When we build up the idea of Christian marriage and love our spouses. Our pastor has been preaching “A Series on Christian Behavior” and his most recent sermon was about submission showing it as an example of Christ (Phil 2:5-11) to follow in our relationships and ultimately in our marriages. This example that Paul wrote of in Ephesians 5-6 was counter-cultural in his day. It is counter cultural in our day to lay aside our own desires and to submit to another’s wishes. What if Christians reveled in our marriages in this way? What if we showed this love to one another? It certainly would be a rebellion against our culture.
A passage our pastor keeps referring to is Matthew 16:24, “Then Jesus told his disciples, “If anyone would come after me, let him deny himself and take up his cross and follow me.” What a summary of how we are to comport our lives! It starts with attending to Christ Jesus – “He told his disciples” – and follows with self-denial, cross bearing, and following him. I’ve been thinking that this is how we revel in our God. This is how we revel in our relationships with our family. This is how we revel in our vocation. We deny ourselves and look to the desires of others. We carry the burdens Christ has set for us. We look to him and follow that path – looking ahead toward what he has for us. I do think this could be the summary of what I want my children to learn in our homeschool.
Faith, Family, Vocation, all tied into one neat package.