Satisfaction

While out on a run recently, I became aware that the old song "Satisfaction" by the Rolling Stones was running through my mind.  You remember the one:  "Well I tried and I tried and I tried and I tried, but I can't get no satisfaction..."  It didn't take much reflection to realize why that song was with me.  It had been a very disappointing day.  The sky of intentions with which the day had begun had crashed against the ground of its reality.  Several of my expectations for the day had been frustrated.  While out for the run, the old song had apparently darted into my mind to give expression to my feelings at the moment: it was a very dissatisfying day.

I know that I'm supposed to critique that song.  I'm supposed to say that Mick Jagger and Keith Richard can't get no satisfaction because they are not (by all appearances) men of faith.  If they were, they'd be much happier and much more satisfied with life.  They'd find delight in the simple things and discover the source of true joy. That's the party line that I'm supposed to repeat.  I'll come back to that in a moment, but I actually find the honesty of the chorus to be somewhat refreshing.  If we're candid, most of us are disappointed, perhaps more frequently than those of us who are Christians care to admit. We have expectations that aren't met.  In fact, I often hear from people who have high expectations of ________ (fill in the blank: their faith, marriage, job, church, lifestyle, possessions etc.) which aren't being met.  Very often it seems as though they are grieving the distance between life as they planned it and how it is actually turning out.  It is as though they have heard that they could live "happily ever after" and, at some level they believed it.  (It probably doesn't help that a multi-billion dollar advertising industry constantly props images before their senses that promise  satisfaction.)   

I'm thinking these thoughts just a little over a week after Easter Sunday.  We celebrated the resurrection of Jesus, and here we are, and everything isn't suddenly better.  Relationships still require work--and sometimes, even with work, they fail.  Things break down way too quickly.  Tornadoes still leave their pernicious paths of destruction.  This leads me to say: I think it's very important to remember what Easter is not, as well as what it is.  Resurrection is not a promise that life suddenly gets better, all of our expectations will be met, we will live with joy and perfect purpose from this day forward.  In fact, it's interesting to note that one of the letters of the New Testament that appeals most forcefully to the resurrection of Jesus, so much so that you could even say that resurrection is just dripping from its pages, is 1 Peter.  Read 1 Peter carefully and you'll notice that this witness to resurrection is written to a church in the midst of persecution and suffering.   You wouldn't have to tell Peter's readers twice that the resurrection doesn't suddenly make all things right.  We live in a fallen world.  We ourselves are fallen.  We can expect disappointment to be part of the picture.

Easter is not the promise that our lives will be suddenly better.  It is, however, the sign that God has overcome the powers of evil that resist God's influence.  It is the promise, which faith welcomes, that the suffering love of God that we see in Jesus is the greatest power at work in the world.  Its power is restorative, renewing and healing.  Resurrection signals that this love of God which suffers with and for us will one day restore the world to God's intentions.  It is the sign and promise that we ourselves who entrust ourselves to this transforming love, will be made new and whole.

In the meantime, even while the disappointments of a not-yet whole world are ever about us, our encounters with joy, love, and beauty are hints and promises of what shall be.  Understanding them this way, we don't need to try to squeeze the living daylights out of those experiences (have you ever noticed how that never works?), or become discouraged when they are not present to the degree that we want them.  Rather, we welcome them, give thanks for them, and embrace them as gifts and promises of what shall be.  I find this perspective to be rather satisfying.