Your Greatest Need Isn't Money, Sex, Or Power, But...
It has been said that the greatest needs of mankind are
money, sex, and power. People will lie,
cheat, and steal to acquire money. Marriages are destroyed, families are ruined,
and jobs are lost as a result of sexual affairs or pornography consumption. Physical fights, threatening letters, and intimidation tactics are engaged to keep another person underneath a thumb. But believe it or not, none of these things
are considered the greatest need of mankind.
What then ‘is’ mankind’s greatest need? The greatest need is to be justified, to be considered
right and good and whole.
This need to be justified is so great that we take it
upon ourselves to justify ourselves. We
do this by attempting to craft stories of our lives in ways that portray ‘ourselves’
as good, right, and salutary. Like a
strainer, we strip away the bad moments of our past and elevate that which is
good, so that we can apply only the positive aspects of our stories to our
identity. In the court of popular
opinion, we gather friends that believe and uphold the version of our story and
we distance those who threaten to topple our grand self-narrative.
Things become a bit difficult though when we can’t escape
the assessments of others. That is to
say, it is difficult to preserve a polished story about ourselves when we have
to interact with people who won’t always acknowledge and uphold our
self-aggrandized stories. One way to
counterbalance this is to play the ‘you can’t judge me’ card. Yes, if we are able to aggressively assert
that other people aren’t allowed to judge us, our polished stories can remain
protected, therefore allowing us to maintain our polished image. However, if the ‘you can’t judge me’ tactic
is unsuccessful and we find the stories of our lives being judged, questioned,
or criticized, we will write the people off as ‘jerks’ and then attempt to find
ways to build up the stories of our lives again. Otherwise stated, these outside judgmental
criticisms essentially attack our ingrained self-justification. As a result, our self-narrative begins to
dim; we find that the self-validating story about ourselves is lacking, which
means that we will try and regain—with possible coercion—that which is
lacking.
This is where money, sex, and power come back into the
picture. These three areas become the means
by which we attempt to regain or coerce our justification, in order to fulfill
ourselves. While money, sex, and power
are good gifts when used in their proper context, a self-validating story in
need of justification will typically ignore these proper contexts and
forcefully seize money, sex, and power at all costs. The catch-22 to this is that the person who
is attempting to acquire justification and recognition actually damns himself
and his story even more when he flippantly rips these gifts out of their proper
context. We want to create something or
acquire something that we believe—and others will say—gives pleasure and ought
to be acknowledged, so that it is rewarded by a look or a comment.[1] However, the more that we forcefully try to
produce and acquire that which we believe will justify ourselves, the more we
typically hurt others in the process, thus further damaging the story we find
ourselves in.
Tragically, “Those who justify themselves are under
compulsion to do so. There is no escape. . . . With our need for justification
we entangle ourselves in the web of guilt”[2] with each additional
self-justifying attempt.
The cycle continues.
Uncertainty impinges.
Darkness sets in.
Despair begins.
Madness.
---
Listen, there is alternative story. There is another way.
This other way is the way of your baptism in Christ Jesus.
 |
| Stephen Dawson |
In baptism you have been buried with Jesus into
death. In baptism you have been
resurrected anew in Jesus. In your
baptismal death you have been untangled from your story of
self-aggrandizement. Undeniably, your
story does not define you or justify you.
It can’t. It won’t. You and your story died with Christ; washed
and drowned. Your sin-story was nailed
to the cross in baptism and you were given a new story—betrothed to the Lamb,
belonging forever to the risen Lord Jesus.
“Thus, [you] are hidden from [yourself] and removed from the judgement
of others or the judgment of [yourself] about [yourself] as a final judgement.”[3] At the baptismal font you were joined to
Jesus, hidden in Him and His wounds.
Baptized: the Lord is well pleased with you.
Baptized: considered right and good and whole.
Baptized: lacking nothing.
Baptized: justified completely.
Baptized: you are!
[1] Oswald Bayer, Living
By Faith: Justification and Sanctification (Grand Rapids, MI: W.M. B.
Eerdmans Publishing Co., 2003), 2.
[2] Ibid, 2, 30.
[3] Ibid.
[2] Ibid, 2, 30.
[3] Ibid.