Smoke signals

The Native Americans used them to communicate. I can’t imagine smoke signals would work well when the smoke rolls in from forest fires. I wonder whether the Native Americans would have considered our widespread forest fires a communication blackout?

We can try to make light of the foreboding smoke, but there is an ominous quality to it that I think we can all acknowledge. It isn’t fog. The appearance of fog is close to smoke sometimes, but there is something about the acrid smoke that speaks of destruction. I don’t like it.

I hear lots of explanations for the fires: climate change, global warming, bad forestry management, increased population density, etc. Regardless, there is one thing atheists and Christians should agree on – it’s our fault. Paul explains in his letter to the Romans that condemnation came to all men through Adam’s disobedience in eating the forbidden fruit. Rom. 3:15-21. And Peter describes this condemnation when he explains that the heavens and earth “are thus to be dissolved.” 2 Peter 3:11. That’s what Adam’s sin means – the day will come when God will dissolve the entirety of creation.

On a sunny 4th of July with lots of watermelon, the “dissolving” of all things seems pretty far off but, when the smoke rolls in, the end smells like it’s on our doorstep.

It is pretty easy to get caught up in despair. Our political and religious affiliations (or not) shouldn’t matter – if we’ve lived a few years of life, we should have no real hope that humanity is going to sort itself out, stop fighting wars, figure out how to not make a mess of the environment, etc. etc. etc. Pick your particular fears caused by mankind’s failures. We’ve all got them. Sit down with someone whose seen several decades and a pretty common refrain is, “I feel bad for you guys,” or “I feel bad for my grandkids.”

It’s pretty easy to give in to despair. The magnitude of the obstacles, the failures, the hash of it that we’ve made is just too great. We’ve made too big of a mess. How could we ever think that we can dig ourselves out? We aren’t digging ourselves out but digging that hole a little deeper every day. Sure, technology gets better. So now we dig that hole with a backhoe instead of a shovel. No, technology isn’t going to save us. The same kids who grew up on Terminator just created AI after all. The deep-seated brokenness of humanity we Christians call “sin” simply won’t let us escape ourselves. Just wake up and smell the smoke. If there isn’t any in the air, just give it time.

It’s pretty easy to give into despair when we look to ourselves and this world for our solution. It’s obvious that we need a solution bigger than us, bigger than this world that we can mess up. If we are honest, we can’t imagine the solution we need. We need something so much bigger and better than us that we can’t even comprehend it. The truth is we need God who became man in Christ Jesus and died on a cross to bring us out of this doomed creation into a new creation. We need a love that is totally beyond our comprehension, a love that is absolutely and entirely unmerited. We need true grace – that means a gift – a grace that depends on us not at all. Because if our salvation depends on us, if it depends on this broken world or us broken people, it won’t work. We’ll just break it, just ruin it, never earn or deserve it.

God knows all that. He knew it before He created anything. He knew what we would do, what we would fail to do, but He loves us anyway. That’s the thing about God’s love – it isn’t like ours. God loves the unlovable. God does not find something beautiful and love it. God does not find something deserving of love and love it. God loves things that are absolutely worthless and by that love makes them precious beyond measure. That’s real love, that’s real grace, and it’s what Jesus Christ did on the cross.

When the smoke rolls in from the fires, it shouldn’t be doom and gloom. Maybe we should think of it a bit like a smoke signal – one that says, “Yep, we’ve messed it up, but God loves us enough to take us through the blood of His cross into a new creation, a creation where there will be neither tears nor hardship nor any hopelessness.” It’s a promise paid for us in full, guaranteed by God through Christ’s death on the cross, irrevocable and beautiful. It’s enough to give us joy and peace and love, even in smoky days and the real hardship of this world, because it is so much greater than this world and all our hardships.

And maybe we should also look at the smoke a bit like a smoke signal – one that tells us of the opportunities God places in our lives to live His love toward each other, toward the places we live, to care for every thing around us not for the sake of things themselves, but for the sake of the love He has for us and we have for one another.