More Than Chemicals

I am confident that we all still live in the residue of the modern age. Even if you’ve never stepped foot in a philosophy classroom, you probably live with at least a bit a functional materialism under the hood.

What does that mean? It means we’ve been subtly trained to believe that the physical world is the only world. Even though research is showing that Gen Z and Gen Alpha are increasingly more open to spiritual realities, our overarching culture is still build on the assumed naturalism of the modern world. We’re told that our consciousness is just a series of chemical reactions in our brain, that our mind is just a biological fluke, and that when the body stops, the story ends.

In this worldview, as the meme says, you are essentially a brain piloting bone mech covered with meat armor.

The Weightlessness of Materialism

The problem with this purely physical understanding of life is that it is utterly, devastatingly hopeless. If you are just a collection of atoms that happened to clump together, then your life has exactly as much meaning as a head of lettuce.

Meaning becomes whatever you create. Whatever you decide it is. Which is just another way of saying it isn't real.

In the suburbs of St. Louis where I live, Its easy for many folk feel a sense of weightlessness or no grounding. Many folk in my context have the house, the car, the career, and the 401(k), but there is a persistent, gnawing hunger in our gut that these physical things just can’t satisfy. We try to fix a spiritual hunger with physical solutions, and we wonder why we’re still starving.

The Midnight Conversation

Two thousand years ago, a man named Nicodemus found himself in a similar spot. He was sort of the rock star of his day. As a member of the ruling counsel of his people he was highly educated, politically powerful, and incredibly successful. If anyone had made it in the material world, it was Nico.

And yet he seeks out Jesus, the uneducated backwoods preacher, in the middle of the night for a private conversation. Why? Because the life he built wasn't enough to sustain his soul.

Jesus’ response to him is famous, but it’s also shocking: "Unless someone is born again, he cannot see the kingdom of God." Jesus wasn't telling Nicodemus to "try harder" or "be more religious." He was telling him that he was more than a body. He was telling him that he had a spiritual self that was currently blind and dead, and that it needed a new birth that only God could provide.

Identity as a Gift, Not a Project

Here is some of the best news you’ll hear this week: Your identity isn't a project you complete, it’s a gift you receive.

In our culture, I think we are under immense pressure to create and curate ourselves. We have to define our own purpose, our own value, and our own truth. It is a crushing, exhausting way to live. But Jesus tells Nicodemus (hear in that: us) that spiritual life is like the wind. You don't control it, you don't birth yourself into it, you simply receive it.

How?

By looking to the cross.

Jesus references a story from Numbers 21, saying that just as the Israelites looked to the bronze serpent in the wilderness to be healed, we look to Him. We look to the one who stepped out of eternity and into our broken, material world to find us.

Whose You Are

Your identity isn't found in your biology or your chemical reactions. It is found in the fact that you are The Beloved of Jesus.

God didn't send His Son into the world to look down His nose at your failures. He sent Him because He loved the world (He loved you) in this way: He gave His life so that your dead spirit could breathe again.

You are a body, yes. You have a mind, absolutely. But you are also a spirit, designed for eternity. Stop trying to find your life's meaning in things that rot and rust. Turn to the Light, look to the Cross, and find out whose you really are.