“The tragedy of the world is that the echo is mistaken for
the Original shout. When our back is to the breathtaking
beauty of God, we cast a shadow on the earth and fall in
love with it. But it does not satisfy. The books or the
music in which we thought the beauty was located will
betray us if we trust them…For they are not the thing
itself; they are only the scent of a flower we have not
found, the echo of a tune we have not heard, news from a
country we have never yet visited.”
—John Piper, The
Dangerous Duty of Delight
Wednesday, February 16, 2011
Tuesday, February 15, 2011
Glory pt.2
12-4-10
The mystery is Christ. Through Him the worlds were made and by Him they hold together. He is the source of that beauty our inner selves catch glimpses of in everything. Christ is what our hearts are really longing for when we run after beautiful things. When we enjoy music or see a great painting, when we read great novels or see a sunrise, we are really taking in the glories of Christ. We only see them through a dark glass but one day our hearts will be able to eat up every delightful bit of Christ.
The mystery is Christ in you. This great God, who is the hidden object of all of our very apparent longings has chosen to reveal Himself to us in the person of Jesus Christ. Jesus, the Word, is the closest we will get this side of heaven to understanding the beauty we long for. The wonderful thing is that, by dying on the cross for us, God has made a way that Christ can live in our hearts. We the redeemed possess within our hearts the answer to our soul's questioning. The end and object of all our longings has not only been made known to us, He has chosen out of love to live in our hearts. There is nothing more intimate than the indwelling Christ. That the God of the universe would choose to scrub us clean and invade our minds is the greatest mystery in history. That He would not leave us as we are but change even our desires is the greatest reversal anyone will ever know. Through it all we find Christ working in our lives to receive praise.
The mystery is Christ in you, the hope of glory. We cannot yet say "Christ in you: glory" because we have not yet attained all of the glory our hearts long for. While He has sent the Spirit into our hearts, it is as a guarantee that better things are to come. Nothing is better than being with God, but the change we will experience in the future is equal to or greater than the change we have already experienced. Just as we look back now on our past life and find no way of comparing it with the glories of life with Christ, we will one day wonder how we ever lived outside of the physical presence of the Lord.
My heart loves great paintings, but finds no contentment there. My soul hungers after creative music, but knows no fulfillment in melodies alone. My mind longs for prose and poetry, but never comes away satisfied.
It is because these are only mediums, methods of communication. My minds eye wants a clear picture, but it doesn't know of what. When I hear stories of sacrifice and love I feel I'm getting warmer. There is a deadness in 'great novels' whose themes are the degeneracy of our stupid race. Something inside me wants not only excellence in form, but meaning in content. Futility is found in everything other than Christ. Even the wisest man knew it all was meaningless. The mystery was kept hidden in Solomon's time. If He had known mystery, Christ in us, he would have joined Paul in saying "I have counted everything as garbage compared to the surpassing greatness of knowing Jesus Christ my Lord.
Now with His blood in my veins and His mind in my brain I will reject second bests. I will no longer settle for the methods of beauty used to tell the story of futility. My heart refuses to accept this world's portrayal of emptiness and brokenness. I will continue to believe in love and forgiveness in the face of human bitterness and apathetic seclusion. I will continue to trust in the faithfulness of God as my only hope of glory.
I see a man nailed to a scaffold. Between gasps of blood and cold air He is able to say "it is finished."
Jesus Christ, the hope of glory.
The mystery is Christ. Through Him the worlds were made and by Him they hold together. He is the source of that beauty our inner selves catch glimpses of in everything. Christ is what our hearts are really longing for when we run after beautiful things. When we enjoy music or see a great painting, when we read great novels or see a sunrise, we are really taking in the glories of Christ. We only see them through a dark glass but one day our hearts will be able to eat up every delightful bit of Christ.
The mystery is Christ in you. This great God, who is the hidden object of all of our very apparent longings has chosen to reveal Himself to us in the person of Jesus Christ. Jesus, the Word, is the closest we will get this side of heaven to understanding the beauty we long for. The wonderful thing is that, by dying on the cross for us, God has made a way that Christ can live in our hearts. We the redeemed possess within our hearts the answer to our soul's questioning. The end and object of all our longings has not only been made known to us, He has chosen out of love to live in our hearts. There is nothing more intimate than the indwelling Christ. That the God of the universe would choose to scrub us clean and invade our minds is the greatest mystery in history. That He would not leave us as we are but change even our desires is the greatest reversal anyone will ever know. Through it all we find Christ working in our lives to receive praise.
The mystery is Christ in you, the hope of glory. We cannot yet say "Christ in you: glory" because we have not yet attained all of the glory our hearts long for. While He has sent the Spirit into our hearts, it is as a guarantee that better things are to come. Nothing is better than being with God, but the change we will experience in the future is equal to or greater than the change we have already experienced. Just as we look back now on our past life and find no way of comparing it with the glories of life with Christ, we will one day wonder how we ever lived outside of the physical presence of the Lord.
My heart loves great paintings, but finds no contentment there. My soul hungers after creative music, but knows no fulfillment in melodies alone. My mind longs for prose and poetry, but never comes away satisfied.
It is because these are only mediums, methods of communication. My minds eye wants a clear picture, but it doesn't know of what. When I hear stories of sacrifice and love I feel I'm getting warmer. There is a deadness in 'great novels' whose themes are the degeneracy of our stupid race. Something inside me wants not only excellence in form, but meaning in content. Futility is found in everything other than Christ. Even the wisest man knew it all was meaningless. The mystery was kept hidden in Solomon's time. If He had known mystery, Christ in us, he would have joined Paul in saying "I have counted everything as garbage compared to the surpassing greatness of knowing Jesus Christ my Lord.
Now with His blood in my veins and His mind in my brain I will reject second bests. I will no longer settle for the methods of beauty used to tell the story of futility. My heart refuses to accept this world's portrayal of emptiness and brokenness. I will continue to believe in love and forgiveness in the face of human bitterness and apathetic seclusion. I will continue to trust in the faithfulness of God as my only hope of glory.
I see a man nailed to a scaffold. Between gasps of blood and cold air He is able to say "it is finished."
Jesus Christ, the hope of glory.
Monday, February 14, 2011
Glory pt.1
12-4-10
This is the mystery: Christ in you, the hope of Glory. Col 1:27
The mystery is that which was hidden before. But it is more than that. If something is suddenly revealed we call it a surprise, not a mystery. Somehow this mystery was anticipated. From the puzzles of our hearts to the creaking of our bones, all of our being has ached to know the answer.
The question being: "is there any hope of glory?"
I see a sculpture of King David, Michelangelo's master piece. He is a picture of the glory of man: himself. But the marble eyes look longingly into thin air, wishing for something unseen by art critics.
I see a young child sitting by a fire. His eyes are lit by epochs his grandfather tells of love and war and hate and forgiveness. Nothing inside him doubts that the beauty is true, but his grandfather knows that they are only far fetched tales to inspire the dumb. But are they?
All art, all living, and all teaching seems to have wrapped up in it somewhere this hope that we are more than just blood and bones. We cannot deny death, but even more than a fear of extinction we have a longing for something else. C.S. Lewis called our world the shadow lands. The beauty we see here seems to catch for a moment what our hearts are really straining after. It is like the boy in Lois Lowry's The Giver who sees color for an instant and is powerless to communicate it. Nothing in our language really captures this longing of the heart for what is truly good, this dissatisfaction with what we have always known. We cannot use words like 'beauty' or 'majesty' because their meanings have been sullied by a thousand lesser uses. 'Glory' is possibly the closest living relative in our modern language.
Tuesday, February 1, 2011
Last Notes
By Shaun Groves
There is a part of me
That's only visiting
Torn from eternity
A stranger here
The awkward mingling of
The loveless and beloved
So far from things above
While I am here
So when the last notes of my
Soul's summer symphony
Go stealing through this old world's
Cold garden gates
I will hold no fear
As You close my book of hours
And the hands of heaven carry me
Carry me home to stay
O Death where is your sting
Your tears and tremblings
His peace is lingering even now
O Grave the battle's fought
Your vict'ry has been lost
To Christ who gave it all
To take me now
O Grave the battle's fought
Your vict'ry has been lost
To Christ who gave it all
To take me home
There is a part of me
That's only visiting
Torn from eternity
A stranger here
The awkward mingling of
The loveless and beloved
So far from things above
While I am here
So when the last notes of my
Soul's summer symphony
Go stealing through this old world's
Cold garden gates
I will hold no fear
As You close my book of hours
And the hands of heaven carry me
Carry me home to stay
O Death where is your sting
Your tears and tremblings
His peace is lingering even now
O Grave the battle's fought
Your vict'ry has been lost
To Christ who gave it all
To take me now
O Grave the battle's fought
Your vict'ry has been lost
To Christ who gave it all
To take me home
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