I can’t get over it.

How it was sung,

repeated,

over and over

and I settled in

after the first intermission

and let the words

wash over me,

cleansing

all the filth

and the fluff

between the synapses,

clear

all the residue

from my faith eyes

and,

like a blood transfusion,

purify

my heart.

Meditation

has never been easy.

I could blame

being a millennial.

My focus

is divided

at best.

boredom

descends quick.

And that insatiable craving

for some new

to devour with my eyes,

my brain,

something to divert,

to inform,

to observe,

mostly,

that passive

observance

of life

going by fast

a happy reel

changing

just fast enough

that I don’t

put it down

soon enough.

 

But this…

“Ev’ry valley

shall be exalted,

and e’vry mountain and hill

made low….”

Over and over.

What does it mean?

A surface, quick answer.

What else could it mean?

What if meaning isn’t the point?

What if I just receive?

Passive, yes,

But here’s the difference.

My heart is open,

Alive.

“Speak, LORD,

your servant hears.”

“Rejoice greatly, O daughter of Zion,

shout, O daughter of Jerusalem,

behold thy King cometh unto thee.”

 

A forever history of promises

parading before me

in slow-motion,

then backing up

and coming past again.

and I begin to feel it

the yearning of from forever

to forever,

all those generations

waiting.

 

“All we like sheep have gone astray,

we have turned e’vry one to his own way;

and the Lord hath laid on Him

the iniquity of us all.”

 

They waited

and did not see.

How patient the life,

how indefatigable

the hope,

carrying them

until…

 

“And though worms destroy this body,

yet in my flesh

shall I see God,” Job

 

This life

now,

with my heart beating

and my mind whirring,

my plans,

my material possessions,

relationships,

dreams,

memories,

it’s all we live for.

Happy with this

happy reel.

Well,

some of us are.

But this all ends.

For some sooner.

You lose your memories.

You forget their names.

You lose all of your possessions.

You lose your connections.

Your achievements.

Your money.

Your dreams dim.

Your body

Fails.

Then death.

 

“Since by man came death, by man came also the resurrection of the dead…”

“Behold I tell you a mystery;

we shall not all sleep,

but we shall all be chang’d,

in a moment, in the twinkling of an eye,

at the last trumpet.”

 

“Christianity offers a restoration of life.

We get our bodies back-

indeed, we get the bodies we never had

but wished we had,

and one beyond our greatest imaginings.

We get our lives back –

indeed, we get the life we longed for

but never had.

It’s all because the Christian hope

is not just an ethereal disembodied existence

but one in which

the soul and the body

are finally perfectly integrated,

one in which we dance, sing, hug, work, and play.

The Christian doctrine

of the resurrection is , then,

a reversal of death’s seeming irreversibility.

It is the end of “nevermore,” Tim Keller

 

“…when a willing victim

who had committed no treachery

was killed in a traitor’s stead,

the Table would crack,

and Death itself would start working backwards…” C.S. Lewis

 

“Death is swallowed up in victory.”

And I enter into

this waiting

this advent.

Put my hope in

this forever story of promises

that they all died waiting for

and all rejoice

in resurrection life,

seeing, in their flesh,

the face of God.

 

And they sing,

“Hallelujah,

for the Lord our God Omnipotent reigneth,

Hallelujah.

The Kingdom of this world

is become

the Kingdom of our Lord

and of His Christ,

and he shall reign

for ever and ever,

Hallelujah!”

 

And my heart,

Now fully awake,

Praises

And prays

You receive

all the glory,

all these laudations

of your waiting people,

standing in reverence,

bathed in the Word,

roused from our worldly stupors,

believing again

in a God who wanted me and us enough

to tear open Heaven,

not with wrath, but with Love,

to carry His lambs home, close to his heart.

forever.

And we take heart

and take up hope

that is and is to come.

“Blessing and honour,

glory and power be

unto Him that sitteth

upon the throne

and unto the Lamb

for ever and ever.”

 

~Scripture references from Handel’s Messiah