Life is not neat and tidy. Humanity has struggled with that
fact for ages. We blame Persephone or Eve. We tell of heroes fighting off
monsters of chaos (these battles are called chaoskampf in German). We offer
rituals and programs, promising a solution that will bring order. Because we
want order and we believe that order will ultimately defeat chaos.
But why? Why do we so long for an answer, an order, that does not seem to successfully appear? If we are creatures of a chaotic world, why are we not creatures comfortable with chaos?
It is because God is a god of order. The world was void and
formless, and ex nihilo He created order. We can observe this order and pattern
through the science of material world. God promised that all will be well. We
long for His order, when our faults and chaos are diminished in His presence.
We are not satisfied in a chaotic world, because we were not made for a chaotic
world. We were made for the time and place where there are the answers, where
meaning is clear, where everything is well.
The Bible refers to the “chaos magnum” or “great gulf” between
heaven and hell. And we’re caught in between, reaching out, trying to put
everything into place. There is a lot of chaos that clouds the way—illness,
hurt, war, sin. We long for clarified answers, a cleared path. But we struggle to
know what’s right or the right decisions to make. There is some order—the predictability
of science, the stability of tradition, the peace that comes in union with God.
We oscillate between chaos and order, hell and heaven, annihilation and absolution.
It is our fate to wade through the chaos, to keep searching
for answers, to sit with the disparity until God’s promise is fulfilled. All
will be well. All will be resolved. That promise is the only answer.
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