My favorite contemporary theologian, the late Robert Capon, in his last tome, The Fingerprints of God, reminds us, as the title indicates, that God's fingerprints can be found everywhere one looks from the beginning of time and not just at certain specific moments in history.
When we read Scripture, we are wont to believe God's interaction into history is sort of the hit-and-miss variety. God shows up at the beginning and creates the world, intervenes in the Garden, comes back around Noah's time, takes a long break until he makes a pact with Abraham -- and that is only for starters. As for God's being seen elsewhere in the world, or anywhere in the world, or at all, well...only for those who have the eyes of faith to see.
For it is faith that gives us those all-seeing eyes, gives us the ability to see God at work in our lives and all around us, gives us the ability to enjoy what God has already done for us and is still doing for us day in and day out -- which is precisely Capon's definition of faith. He says that "faith doesn't do anything; it simply enables believers to enjoy what Jesus has already done for them." The emphasis is on "enjoy" and on "already done." What God is still doing for us is icing on the cake, if you will.
What God, Jesus, has already done for us is forgive us for sins committed past, present and future. Faith says that we do not have to do anything to have our sins forgiven. In fact, we cannot do anything. Either God forgives our sins in Jesus or we are stuck with them. Anything we might do or want to do or think we have to do to get God to forgive our sins will always come up short and will never be enough.
And if that were the case, if we had to do something to obtain forgiveness, then faith in God would not be enjoyable in the least, and neither would trying to live a faith-filled live -- because that would be an impossibility. We would be worrying every minute of every day that we weren't getting it right, which, of course, is impossible to do anyway.
Thus, in order to enjoy this life God has given us, we have faith that however much we mess up -- and we all mess up big time at times -- we can go on knowing that we have already been forgiven in and through Jesus. That doesn’t justify the messing-up. It simply allows us to be able to pick ourselves up and move on rather than getting stuck in remorse and even fear of some kind of retribution on God’s part.
Capon's irreverent view of this life (and for which I have always enjoyed reading his works) is one giant cocktail party where everyone is toasting God's love and forgiveness. Not a bad picture even if, personally, cocktail parties leave much to be desired. One big pizza party would be more to my liking and imagining, but you get the point.
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