Whoever does not take up their cross and follow me is not worthy of me. Whoever finds their life will lose it, and whoever loses their life for my sake will find it. (Matthew 10:38-39) Jesus said to her, "I am the resurrection and the life. The one who believes in me will live, even though they die; and whoever lives by believing in me will never die. Do you believe this?" (John 11:25-26) These verses present some of the key "dialectics" of our faith.  Now I'm not talking about the difference in accents across regions, like the Nova Scotian dialect that makes them sound funny when they say the word "car."  No, that devotion will have to wait for Pentecost.  I'm not talking about "dialects," I'm talking about "dialectics."  It's a word drawn from philosophy, and a particular corner of it.  In this instance, I'm using "dialectic" to describe the holding together in tension of two opposed realities.   The New Testament is full of examples.  The dialectic tension can be felt in the verses above, where Jesus says it's only the one who loses their life who will find it, or the one who—by believing—will live even though they die.  But dialectics show up all over.  God's strength made perfect in our weakness.  Jesus as both fully God and fully human.  God's eternity entering into our time-bound lives.   The Christian life is defined by holding together the opposites.  You cannot live in the middle, in a Laodicean "lukewarmness," but nor can you flatten the whole world into either hot or cold.  You have to hold together both hot and cold, without losing or mixing either of them into a lukewarm puddle.  So, you have to hold together death and life, suffering and joy, light in darkness, being lost and found, both sinful and holy, both pure and stained, and worship a Jesus who is both one of us and totally other than us. You cannot get rid of Jesus' humanity or his divinity, or you no longer have Jesus.  It's both/and, not either/or.  You have to hold the dialectic tension.  You also can't pretend that you aren't at the same time both lost AND found, sinner AND saint.  We are not one or the other—we're both at the same time our whole lives through.   We Christians are a people called to hold and bear the tension of both/and.  We are called to hold the "dialectic," bringing both sides of totally opposed realities in their strength, weakening neither of them.   That said—we Christians are pretty bad at being "tension holders."  Instead, we're more often just "tense."  But not in the healthy, hopeful, or holy sense.  When we feel these tensions, it seems to us that something must be wrong and that somehow one side ought to win out over the other to resolve it, because who can live in such tension?  So, we fight and force resolutions, or split off on our own to avoid the tension.  But rarely does the tension resolve for long.  Life continues to thrust us back into dialectics that complicate everything and string us up in yet another complicated tension of opposite forces. The Bible confirms that this dialectic tension, rather than its absence, is actually the way things are supposed to be for now.  Everything is defined by unpredictable dialects which serve their purpose when we surrender to them and allow them to do their work in keeping us awake, alert, and attentive to Jesus' own mysterious work of bringing life through death.  Dialectics provide the tension and resistance that exercise our faith and trust, causing them to grow.  Without that tension: our faith muscles atrophy and go limp in Laodicean lukewarmness.   So, keep both the hot and the cold.  Take up your cross today and every day to lose your life so that you can find it each day anew in Jesus.  And, trust the weakness of his humanity and the strength of his divinity to mysterious shepherd you through whatever joys and sorrows life throws your way as you walk in his way today.  

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