"Up, Up, Up"

 Up, up, up. And then you see the sun. 

 One of my favorite travel moments, especially if we have taken off when the clouds are producing rain, is when that moment when the airplane finally breaks through the thick moisture and we are surrounded instead by sparkling, eternal, bright blue.

 How you experience life is a matter of which side of the clouds you are on. Beneath the clouds you feel their weight holding you down.  Rise above them and you feel the freedom of flight, the joy of being held aloft on God’s pillow mattress. Then the clouds are pillows inviting you to skydive onto them, a playground of white cushions and blue spaces.

 Hope is the knowledge that carries the dying up.  Here is what we know: just as Jesus’ body was taken up, hidden by a cloud, so it shall be for our bodies when Jesus comes again to fly us home. (Acts 1:9, 11)

 Up, up, up. And then we shall see the Son.

 (Inspired by the movie Clouds.  Written for a friend who is in hospice, awaiting her rise above the clouds.)

We'll go up, up, up
But I'll fly a little higher
Go up in the clouds because the view is a little nicer
Up here my dear
It won't be long now, it won't be long now.

Zach Sobiech, Clouds

 

"There's Gonna Be a Great Day!"

When I was much younger I had a favorite audition song entitled "Great Day." I loved the upbeat tempo and message: "When you're down and out, lift up your head and shout, there's gonna be great day. Angels in the sky promise that by and by there's gonna be a great day."

I didn't know much about being "down and out" when I was young.  At this stage in my life I see how "down and out" it is possible to get. I live in this traumatic time with many people. Some are family. Some are friends. Some are members of the congregation I serve. And some are strangers, at least until they walk into my study at church.

One visitor was an older man, unemployed and disabled, a single parent to a teenager. He needed a gas card. He told me how he sometimes made money singing and playing his saxophone.  I invited him to audition for me in the sanctuary. So, there the two of us were, in a dark sanctuary, he singing a song he wrote and I serving as audience and potential employer.  After his audition  I gave him the gas card and invited him to perform for our congregation.  After a long discussion he stunned me by handing back the gas card. He said, "I'll be back for that when I come to sing in your church." 

A second visitor was a tall, fit man who looked for all the world like a "success".  What I found out was that he was recently "down-sized" when his position was eliminated. He was married and has seven children.  But, he wasn't there asking for anything from the church. Rather, he was using his time ("all I have is time right now") to explore how he and his wife could best use their "God's Storehouse" fund. On top of their tithe to their church, this couple took extra money, bonuses or gifts, and put them in a separate account to bless people in need.  They had vowed to never use it for themselves. So, though he was unemployed, he was looking to give his savings away.  Rarely have I met a better example of a person who lived out his belief that, though he was presently down and out,  "angels in the sky promise that by and by there's gonna be a great day."

The ultimate "great day" is  going to happen when Gabriel blows his famous horn.  Until then it takes a little effort on our part, and probably a shift in vision from “down” to “up”, to make a

day great. What step of faith are you willing to take today to prepare yourself to receive the promised great day?

Happy Birthday, People!

This Saturday is, for our friends in the Jewish faith, the last weekend of the year.  Tomorrow, October 2, at sundown, the New Year begins.  (God-created time begins with sundown, not sunrise. Read Genesis 1:5 if you don’t believe me.)  So, on the first day of the 7^th month of the biblical year, the Holy Days of Rosh Hashanah are observed. It begins with the blast of a shofar (a hollowed-out ram’s horn), and so it is a time also known as the Feast of Trumpets.  The trumpet announces the arrival of the time to celebrate the old being made new.

Some people believe that this day is the anniversary of the day God created humankind, namely, Adam and Eve.  We can argue about the meaning of the “six days” of Creation, and all that goes with it, but the thought that brings me joy today is this: humanity has a birthday, and we should celebrate it. October 2 is the day that God spoke the words that ushered in humanity,  which followed the days that God spoke the words which ushered in the globe on which humanity would walk, the Lights which would show them the way, and the animals and plants which would surround them.

“People” have a birthday.  There was a time there were no people. When I woke up this morning I was trying to picture what that must have looked like, when nothingness became the World and all that is in it. What was it like on the day when the rabbits and deer first saw Eve’s eyes admiring them; when the plants first felt Adam’s hands gathered  them up in the harvest?

Why doesn’t the Christian faith have a day to celebrate the birth of humanity? (There is a lot more to Rosh Hashanah than this, of course. Indeed, the Holy Days that follow are known as the Days of Awe, and it all ends with Yom Kippur,  the Day of Atonement. The holy days are filled with thoughts of the Book of Life, a topic to which I will return next Saturday.)

I wonder if Christianity’s lack of a day to celebrate humanity’s birth is because the Christian focus is not so much on what is as it is on what will be.  What the Christian expression of faith in One God adds to the Jewish expression of faith in that same One God is a focus on Hope.  We focus on the Hope that is found in the birth of the Creator who became a human.  We focus on the Hope that is found in the transformation of a new body after the old body dies.  And we focus on the Hope that this Old Earth will become the New Earth. We celebrate Genesis 1 and 2 by reading it through the lens of Revelation 21 and 22.  Go and read just the headings of those chapters and you will see what I mean.

So, yes, we should join our Jewish friends in the faith in helping them to celebrate the anniversary of humanity. Tomorrow night we should raise a “happy birthday, people” shout. I do believe there was a time when we “were not”, and I want to celebrate that we “are.”  But mostly, I want to celebrate the Hope that we “will be”.  Forever. Hallelujah. Sound the Trumpet!