To Men in Exile


To the Exiled Men,

                In some ways, many ways, the world seems tailor-made for you.  But something just isn’t right.  It is too much.

                Expectations are so much lower.  No one thinks that you need to do anything great with your life.  In fact someone might try to medicate that inclination right out of you.  Just sit still, behave, and be a good boy.  Don’t strive.  Don’t struggle.  Don’t work too hard. 

                Just play.  Have a good time.  Enjoy life.  After all, you don’t even need your own health insurance until you are 27.  What is the big rush to grow up, to become a man?

And chivalry is dead.  No one expects you to pick up the tab anymore.  No one expects you to open doors or pull out chairs.  This is an equal society.  You save a lot of money.  You save a lot of effort.

                Sex is easier than it used to be.  Go back 50 years and you had to give a girl a ring, or at least promise to, if you wanted to get in her bed.  Now you rarely need to promise breakfast.

                But girls?  Who needs real girls?  They are complicated.  You can have all of the perfect, unencumbered sex you want.  You can fulfill your every fantasy, no matter how extreme, on the internet.  You don’t even have to buy a magazine or rent a video, just type a few letters, and there it is.  Free.

                You see how great that all sounds?  Low expectations.  Free sex.  No pressure from anyone.  No hard work.  No sacrifice.  No obligations.

                If that is what you want, then stop reading now.  If you are satisfied with what society want you to be, with what it wants you to have, then go back to it. 

                You can’t though.  You cannot shake the feeling that this is too easy.  It is too simple.  There must be more.  You were created for more.

                You were.  You are.

                In the beginning God formed the Man from the dust of the earth and placed him in paradise.  God set the Man in a flawless garden and told him to “dress it and to keep it.”

                There was work even in paradise.  There was duty.  There was obligation.  There was a woman.

                From the Man’s side the Lord God made a companion for him, someone to save him from his loneliness.  She was called Woman.

                She was dangerous, this Woman.  She was real.  She was flesh and blood, “bone of my bones and flesh of my flesh.”  And every inch of her flesh was worth every ounce of his blood. 

                “Therefore shall a man leave his father and his mother and shall cleave unto his wife: and the two shall be one flesh.”

                You were created for work, great works.  You were made to honor your obligations.  You were fashioned to love one woman your whole life.

                Look how far we have fallen, you and I.  We have lost sight of what it really means to be a man.  We have sold our souls for an easier life, for cheap sex.

                There is hope.  There is one man, a True Man, who has come to give us the way.  This Man spent Himself in His work, traveling, fighting, protecting, teaching, healing.  He loved His Bride with every last drop of His priceless blood.    

                He is Jesus, the Anointed One, the King of Israel, the Lord of Heaven and Earth.  And He is more than simply an example of Manhood.  He is the source.  You cannot earn your manhood by following Him.  You must receive it as a gift from His pierced side.

                Christ shed His blood on the cross to set you right with the One who created you as a man.  His sacrifice has renewed you in your manhood. 

                The gift of manhood that God gave when He formed you in the womb He then rejuvenates when He calls you through the waters of Baptism.  He revitalizes you in your duties with every firm declaration that your trespasses are atoned for.  He re-galvanizes your one-flesh union when He gives you His flesh and blood to eat and to drink.

                True Manhood can be found only in Jesus.  It can be received only from Jesus.  To the men in exile, may your Lord bring you in that Way.


In Christ,
A Fellow Exile

To Women in Exile

Comments

Popular posts from this blog

Reflections on the Fall of a Pastor

One Thing Ken Ham Didn't Say, but Should Have

Why the Resurrection is the Only Answer that Matters