Chess, Christ, and the Dream of All Mankind

And if your foot causes you to sin, cut it off. It is better for you to enter life lame than with two feet to be thrown into hell. Mark‬ ‭9:45‬ ‭ESV‬‬

I am the vine; you are the branches. Whoever abides in me and I in him, he it is that bears much fruit, for apart from me you can do nothing. ‭‭John‬ ‭15:5‬ ‭ESV‬‬

I went in search of a bad person; I found none as I, seeing myself, found me the worst. – Kabir

I’ve been playing a good amount of chess lately, and one of the fascinating aspects of chess is just how many times players make mistakes, miss moves, and blunder. Not a game goes by regardless of who wins or loses that both sides fail to see or capitalize on something. This is true for grandmasters as much as your everyday joe player. Simply put our human abilities in decision making are decidedly flawed. And what’s even more interesting is that this flawed nature of ours will simply NEVER go away. It won’t be “fixed” or “healed” or trained out with practice or anything else, because the simple fact remains that we are inherently flawed, broken, and imperfect. Althought it is true we can practice to improve our abilities and our gameplay, and there is certainly much room for improvement for all of us, but ultimately no matter how hard we try or work upon ourselves we cannot eradicate our humanity. Who we are as human beings is not perfect in the sense that we will never make mistakes or never sin or never miss the mark. We simply cannot change this fact about ourselves no matter how positive we may spin it or how much will power we exert upon ourselves – our desires, our lusts, our gluttonies, our prides, fears, and angers (the list goes on ad nauseum) will come over us and we will fall prey to them. We simply cannot help ourselves. Left to our own devices we simply cannot overcome our own sins and flaws and shortcomings let alone the sins of the world and the creation.

This cold hard fact that we simply cannot make ourselves perfect is a very powerful and fundamental premise for understanding our relationship to God and the incredible value of Jesus Christ and who He is. For He is the only man that is perfect, that has no flaws, and lives a purely pure and truly true life as God as man. And because He lives His life as He does, we too are now able to avail ourselves of His Grace, which although admittedly (and most interestingly) still does not make us as perfect as He is, but it does stamp us with His mark and makes us anew in His image and likeness. We are washed free of the mark of sin, of flaw, that is upon us and can now be like Him and do as He does. We are in a word white-washed by the pure Grace of Him – the one true Lamb of God – and we can finally walk free in the sun. But even then who among us shall walk as purely as Him? Who among us shall be and do as truly and as fully as Him? Who among us?

What’s fascinating about this process, our relationship with Jesus Christ, is that it both changes everything for us, within us, and about us, and how we live and approach our lives while also simultaneously (and curiously) not change anything at all. Even after we are initiated into the Book of Life with Jesus Christ we still make mistakes, we are still flawed, we still sin and miss the mark. In short we still let God and ourselves down and do not live up to the fullest potential that we can as the Christ, as Jesus. To be sure we can do our part to live in the body of Christ, and in the eyes of God we hope and pray it shall be good enough, but it is largely thanks to the Grace of God that we can do anything at all in His name. We simply cannot and will not be able to accomplish this in as complete and pure and wholistic manner as Him. One obvious reason for this is that we are born into sin through man and woman who also were born into sin, and so we all have a broken past inside of us as a part of who we are as humans. It is inbuilt into our human nature, and even though it doesn’t have to be – as Jesus Christ reveals – we simply cannot achieve His greatness in that way – we cannot fulfill everything completely all the time, and thankfully we just don’t have to anyway.

The idea that we simply cannot be nor do who and what Jesus Christ is and does is not an unfortunate circumstance or bad news for us. It is not something to resist or deny or defend against. Oh no! Such a condemnation is precisely what ordains us into the supremacy of His Grace. God’s Grace, by simple definition, needs us to be flawed just as much as we need God’s Grace to be made whole again. When we can humble ourselves and realize that we cannot, have not, and will not live up to the fullness of our potential in Christ and God, then and only then, can we begin to open ourselves to the experience of God’s Grace and the manifestation of His Love. God alone completes us, and there is nothing we can do to fulfill ourselves to Him. There is no outer action that is necessary from us to gain His Love, His Grace. And thank God for that! For if there was then we’d all be trapped by some standard of behavior to gain Him, as if each of us had to be able to stand on our heads or do a yoga pose or some other action, ritual, or movement in order to gain His love. No no no. His love for us is ever present and pours forth upon us continually – it is the only coin in His purse, and He pays most handsomely indeed.

Interestingly the only man worthy to judge us, the man free of flaws and sin, Jesus Christ, is also the only man that loves us completely and unconditionally. This explains why vengeance is nothing of the Lord’s nature, for no one is justified in issuing such a decree without being a hypocrite, and He who can and does issue the decree has already and continually done so for us all – and it is His Grace and Love which He so decrees to all throughout His Kingdom both in Heaven and Earth, all creation.

This puts us in a rather curious position then. For if God’s Grace is real and true and unconditional does this mean that now we can all simply rabble rouse and sin and relish in whatever vices we each prefer and are drawn towards? Does God’s Grace justify our self-righteousness and debauchery? The answer is decidedly no, for we humans are fraught to live a complicated life of irony where we must call ourselves forward to improve ourselves continually, working out our bad habits, clearing our addictions, and our sinful natures and tendencies while also simultaneously recognizing that we are not required to do or say any particular thing at all to gain His Love and Grace and access to His Kingdom. So when we fall and fail and sin again (and money says we most certainly will again), we are to forgive ourselves and all involved, re-affirm our committment and devotion to Him and His ways and means, and hopefully, God willing, experience and come back into His Grace and Love. The key to His Kingdom seems to be us just simply being bold and eager enough to take Him for our own, to seek after Him fervently, and to live our lives in His ways. Thankfully we are not required to be of a certain stature or holiness or demeanor in order to participate with Him. All can come to Him no matter how low or high, good or bad, right or wrong we may be forever more. Through Him we are born anew and we are to participate in His newness just as He does. His domain and reach may be larger and far greater than ours, but we can at least tend to our lot and live out His ways under our roof and home.

As we embrace, seek after, and take Jesus Christ as our Lord and Saviour our life shifts from a damned if you do and damned if you don’t infinite cycle unto a blessed if you do and blessed if you don’t eternal process. All the while also realizing and admitting to ourselves that even as we seek to improve upon ourselves and our bad habits we will in fact actually never achieve complete success in our improvements, and that indeed complete improvement is not even required of us let alone possible for us to begin with, but we are still called to the task regardless, for it is our creation and our responsibility. The more we turn towards Him, the more Grace is bestowed upon us in all ways. We are simply required to forever keep on repenting, keep on reckoning ourselves back to God forever more, no matter what we’ve done, not done, all of it. We’ve all done bad, and we will all continue to do bad from time to time. It’s just the way we all are. This is our cross to bear as we follow Him.  He will decide and declare if and when we have arrived to any level of accomplishment or satisfaction or destination. He is our judge and thank God for that as He is the only one that is true and good and righteous enough to judge us at all. We cannot judge, because we are in part a living aspect of the judgment itself. We are broken. Only the one who is whole, true, and one can judge – and that one is Jesus Christ.

Mathematicians say that there is essentially a near infinite number of possible moves in a game of chess. So too are there an infinite number of possible decisions for us to make as we live out our lives. And just like in playing chess, the decisions we make in our lives will be flawed, will miss the mark, and will be largely inadequate when measured against the best possible arrangements and decisions one can make. Thankfully the King has already played His game of chess and lives out His life perfectly. He has already checkmated the world and all creation. The game has already been played, and it has already been won. Now the Victor is simply awaiting each of us – all of creation – to recognize Him and to claim His victory. His victory is our victory, all we need to do is claim it. And this is a claim that WE NEED to make for His Grace is truly the only way we can atone for all that we’ve done, haven’t done, and whatever all that was. He is all that we are pining after, anxious about, and anticipating. It is our greatest dreams all come true in one new dream we never even conceived. A checkmate play we didn’t even know was possible let alone saw coming. Out of an infinite possibility of choices and behaviours and decisions we can make in our lives, our best and greatest play is to call upon Him and with an eager ruthlessness rid ourselves of our bad habits, our flaws, and sinfulness as a means of working to purify ourselves as we seek after Him, pursuing Him headlong straight into the arms of the Christ. Both of these fronts are vital and necessary for us to do as they hone and improve upon each other as we exercise them. It seems, more than anything else, this is largely our main purpose in life and what we are all here for as humans. Through Him we are made whole and new again, even better than we could imagine or fashion of our own accord. The ground the Christ claims for us is all of life eternal, and by doing so the entire game of life as we know it is pinned to His checkmate – risen and victorious.