Vanity Fair

Most of you will be familiar with the contemporary American magazine of the above name.  It regularly talks about culture, fashion and politics.

I was very surprised to find the same name in The Pilgrim's Progress, a Christian allegory of one man's search for eternal life.  Allow me to side track for a while.  It is a wonderfully crafted story by John Bunyan that traces the difficult journey of one man's journey in salvation.  I'm about halfway through the book and already there have been many precious reminders and fresh perspectives into the faith we call Christianity.  Here's one of those lessons from Vanity Fair...

The main character Christian enters a town together with a friend, Faithful.

 

"...they presently saw a town before them, and the name of that town isVanity; and at the town there is a fair kept, called Vanity Fair. It is kept all the year long. It beareth the name of Vanity Fair, because the town where it is kept is lighter than vanity; and also, because all that is there sold, or that cometh thither, is vanity, as is the saying of the wise, All that cometh is vanity."

"Therefore at this fair are all such merchandise sold as houses, lands, trades, places, honours, preferments, titles; countries, kingdoms, lusts, pleasures; and delights of all sorts, as whores, bawds, wives, husbands, children, masters, servants, lives, blood, bodies, souls, silver, gold, pearls, precious stones, and what not."

Amidst the psychedelic bedlam, Christian and Faithful were not liked by the people of Vanity for these 3 reasons:

1. Christian and Faithful (the pilgrims) were clothed with a different kind of raiment, from that which was sold at the Fair.

2. They spoke differently as people of Canaan, as compared to the men of this world that ran the Fair.

3. The pilgrims had little regard for the merchandise available.

In addition, they sought only to 'buy the truth' when asked what they would like to purchase.

Maybe it was the setting of the story, maybe it was because I was reading this along busy and colourful Orchard Road but I was alarmed by the story. There were so many, many of the merchandise available at Vanity Fair that I hunger for.  I asked myself if I'm distinct enough from the world that I live in that people know I'm a Christ follower, as Christian and Faithful were.  And then I realised something else.

I can look different and speak different.  (See Reasons 1 & 2)  External appearances are easy to maintain.  Yet I can't say that I have little regard for the merchandise available.  Conviction to do anything pleasing to God comes from having a renewed understanding that cleaves to my soul.  Perhaps as a Christian, I struggle with so many things because my understanding is 'separate' from me.  My understanding and I can live separately!

This is why I continue to sin with little regard for God - His will for me, His pleasure and His character.  This is why I continue to hunger for material/temporal things - spiritual things do not appeal to me because of the low value I attach to them.

Please pray with me that the Lord will be gracious and merciful, in transforming my mind to understand and for my soul to hunger deeply for the things that please Him. (Rom 12:2) May we be like Faithful, who suffered and died in the town of Vanity standing up for his faith, becaused he knew deeply, that there is no earthly comparison for the good that is waiting for him with Jesus Christ.  

I only wish I knew how to describe the incomparable way Christian and Faithful knew.