Impossible Connections

The box with two tiny Jetpacks that arrived from Verizon was supposed to be just what I needed to upgrade my office system to unlimited data. As humans are so prone to do, I had bitten for the offer before I had digested it, instead of digesting first and biting second. Only after the little gizmos were before my eyes did I begin to ask myself how in the world they could ever replace all the wires that snaked around the office. Needless to say, my personal attempts to get these wireless wonders to connect to my computer fell flat, and even after two hours on the phone with a helpful rep, we finally were forced to admit that the chasm between the two devices was too deep and too wide for a connection to be possible.

What an apt parallel to the frustration we experience as we attempt another connection, the connection between idealism and realism. A psychologist will tell those of us who have reached our forties that we are simply dealing with what is commonly known as “middle-age crisis,” but a closer look at the whole spectrum of life reveals that this struggle—this battle to connect ideals to reality—is a common experience endured at all age levels.

Lily is a sweet little first grader who is no different than the other girls her age except for the dime-sized brown birthmark in the center of her forehead. She is encouraged by her loving parents that the best way to deal with the rejection she suffers is to meet the cruelty with kindness. Lily dreams of how she will win acceptance by giving her mockers a bag of Skittles and Jolly Ranchers. But when the girls ridicule her for her stupidity in thinking that she can earn friendship with candy, Lily's ideal is crushed to the dust. Can she connect the ideal of friendship earned by returning good for evil with the reality that her rejection has merely become more torturous?

John, a serious young man whose desire is to live for Christ, begins a friendship with Mary. John pours everything he is into building this relationship—living out respect, honor, and purity, and poring over the caliber of books that are guaranteed to make godly relationships blossom. Marriage is on the horizon, when for no explicable reason, Mary icily informs John that he is not the man she wants to grow old with. The relationship splinters and disintegrates. John struggles mightily to connect the ideals that he lived out with the reality that instead of love there is heartache.

Joseph is happily married, has been blessed with five precious children, and longs to be part of a brotherhood where the truth of God's Word is a living experience and where relationships are intimate and strong. He had not imagined himself being a man whom God would choose to help shepherd the church, but one day he finds himself in that position, and he pours all he is into his calling. Joseph believes that God builds and revives His kingdom through men of integrity who stand firmly on His truth, and he is shell-shocked to discover that his vision is not shared by his fellow ministry. Before he can get a grip on this vicious reality, he finds himself slandered and ostracized by the brotherhood. Will Joseph, with tears and cries too profound for any human to understand, be able to connect his ideal of a living community with the reality of one that is now only a shroud of ashes?

Call it what we will—broken dreams, shattered ideals, or unrealized visions—what shall we do with our heroic attempts to connect the glory of ideals with the frigidity of real life?

Do the lives of the disciples shed any light on our dilemma of connection across the vast divide between the two opposite poles? Although the Bible is largely mute when it comes to the thoughts and feelings of the disciples, we gather that they were made of the same flesh and blood we contend with. James and John asked Jesus for prominent positions in the earthly kingdom they were waiting for Him to establish, the kingdom which Daniel had prophesied would never pass away or be destroyed. No longer would they be ruled by the cruel Romans. In this new kingdom they would be telling the Romans what they could and could not do. What an advancement from their lives as nobodies fishing on the lake! Is it any surprise that they found it hard to accept Jesus' pronouncement that not only was He going to die, but He would die the death of a criminal on a cross? Is there any wonder that they were exceedingly sorrowful and even rebuked Jesus for entertaining such a thought—the thought that their ideals would perish with Jesus on the cross?

But then one day the inevitable came to pass, and the lofty ideals of the disciples collided with the harsh reality that their King was laid in the grave. Instead of their King rising up to conquer His enemies, they had seen Him surrendering to the mob in the garden. They had witnessed Him refusing to defend Himself against the lies which came against Him, and they had observed His meekness in allowing Himself to be hammered to the cross.

Most of us turn to one of two options when our ideals are crushed beneath the hardness of reality. We may double and redouble our efforts to assure the success of our ideal at all costs, no matter what lives may be hurt or even annihilated through our quest. Or we may resign ourselves to fatalism, surfing the waves as they crash across the landscape of our lives, accepting whatever pleasure we can find in the next doughnut or the next social gathering; becoming robotic, mechanical, and most terrifying of all, lifeless.

Thankfully, the disciples did not cave in to either of these temptations. They got a firm hold on the one truth that can enable anyone to resist despair and to embrace life when he has come face to face with the inability to connect ideals with reality.

That one truth is the truth of the resurrection. Look at the bold, intentional, victorious lives of the disciples after they realized that the resurrection had the final say to any broken dreams life could ever hurl at them. Their eyes and hearts were opened to the fact that most of their ideals were carnal in the first place, and that one day they would live a dream, experience an ideal, and reach a vision incomparable with any dream, ideal, or vision that they had seen slipping away from realization here on this fallen planet.

An impossible connection between ideals and reality? In the here and now, utterly impossible! In the resurrection, absolutely attainable! What an indescribable rapture we will find in the New Jerusalem when our ideals and reality connect and mesh in perfect synchrony. “That I may know Him and the power of His resurrection”

(Philippians 3:10).