Dire Straits

A “strait” describes a narrow waterway or a tight, restricted space. The word has been propelled into common parlance these days, since everyone is concerned about the control of the Strait of Hormuz. For centuries sailors have used the term “dire straits” to refer to especially tightly confined water passages that present heightened danger to the navigator. “Strait” - without the “g-h” also contributes importantly to “straitjacket” and “straitlaced,” both of which present constricting conditions for the wearer.

Eventually, most of us find ourselves in dire straits, one way or another: challenging conditions that threaten to leave us undone. Sometimes it is the will and force of an opposing power that has led us to such dire straits, sometimes it is the result of our own actions; it could be both. We find ourselves in dire straits, and it’s surprising how quickly everything falls apart.

Generation after generation of humans in dire straits have been shaped in faith by the story of God - who is above and beyond the constriction of dire straits, unbound by any limit of strength or wisdom, or of space or time, or even by the trouble of a body, and who could navigate any obstacle without difficulty or effort - deciding of his own divine will to be straitened, just like any one of us, by sending his Son to be born like one of us, to live like one of us, and to die like one of us. The one, true, and living God - un-straitened for all eternity - allowed himself to be straitened in time and space for the singular purpose of epitomizing love as an act of self-giving.

At Easter we are shown what it looks like for God to un-straiten himself, having chosen to be straitlaced for a while. And we are promised that, just as God shared our straitlaced life for a while, at the end of our straitened lives, we will share something of his un-straitened life, too.

God-in-Christ has navigated the narrowest and most perilous of dire straits, including failure, humiliation, and death, sparing himself nothing; and in the power of resurrection, God (who could choose to straiten himself) now un-straitens himself, and bids us to believe that we shall be un-straitened too.

And the thing is that life will always present us with dire straits; God knows this. And God wants us to know that we will not meet our end in dire straits, even if we should founder on the rocks and perish there. The promise that we will be un-straitened is what we call hope. And we tell the story of God’s un-straitening because we know that the danger, and the anxiety and the fear of all the dire straits through which we must pass are real. Just as Christ’s betrayal, and arrest, and beating, and humiliation, and bloodshed, and death are real. God gives us a promise of un-straitening because the narratives of dire straits are frequent and near at hand. We need to be reminded.

Easter is God’s un-straitening, and it is the promise that un-straitening awaits us too, even if we are in dire straits just now. Such is the hope that has been planted in my heart and will not die.