It's my day off...which is a wonderful thing in itself. A day off from my "paid" work and a chance to do the work of restoration, relaxation, and re-creation. A good thing for all of us to do. God tells us to take the 7th day and not work but to dedicate and re-dedicate ourselves again to God [and we realize that the world will go on without our busyness]. We "rest" from our work and connect with God in a fresh way.
In "The Journey" by Os Guiness there is a section called "A Time For Answers" which has some great thoughts to think about (throughout pages 116-118). So here are these thoughts for consideration in the process of taking at least a few "sabbath moments" today.
C.S. Lewis was asked by an interviewer during World War II what he would think if the Germans got the atom bomb, dropped one on England, and he saw it falling right on top of him. "If you only had time for one last thought, what would it be?" Lewis replied that he would look up at the bomb, stick out his tongue at it, and say, "Pooh! You're only a bomb. I'm an immortal soul."
The idea is that there is something beyond this world. That doesn't mean death doesn't matter.
"We follow One who stood and wept at the grave of Lazarus--not surely, because He was grieved that Mary and Martha wept, and sorrowed for their lack of faith (though some thus interpret) but because death, the punishment of sin, is even more horrible in His eyes than in ours...And that brings us again to the paradox. Of all men, we hope most of death; yet nothing will reconcile us to--well, its unnaturalness. We know that we were not made for it; we know how it crept into our destiny as an intruder; and we know Who has defeated it. Because Our Lord is risen we know that on one level it is an enemy already disarmed: but because we know that the natural level also is God's creation we cannot cease to fight against the death which mars it, as against all those other blemishes upon it, against pain and poverty, barbarism and ignorance. Because we love something else more than this world we love even this world better than those who know no other."
Life ought to be otherwise. Death is unnatural.
In "Long Journey Home," Os Guiness writes: "I first encountered the human implications of this belief many years ago through an older and wiser friend in Switzerland. We were together when he was told the news of a well-known Christian leader whose son was killed in a cycling accident. The leader had been devastated, but became the quiet admiration of all when he summoned up his strength, suppressed his grief, and preached eloquently on hope at his son's funeral. "I trust he feels the same thing inside,' was my friend's quiet comment.
"Several weeks later my friend received a telephone call from the Christian leader. Could he come and talk to him? We welcomed him and he went in to talk with my friend, but after a few minutes the rest of us left the house altogether. The walls of chalets are thin and what we heard was not the hope of the preacher but the hurt of the father--pained and furious at God, dark and bilious in his blasphemy.
"My friend's response was not to rebuke him but to point him to the story told of Jesus at the tomb of his friend Lazarus. Three times it says in the account in the Gospel of John that Jesus was angry. One of the words used is the Greek term for 'furious indignation'--the word used by Aeschylus to describe war horses rearing up on their hind legs, snorting through their nostrils, and charging into battle. Face to face with death, Jesus of Nazareth utters no pieties about faith and hope. The world God had created good and beautiful and whole was now broken and in ruins. In moments he was going to do something, but Jesus' first response was outrage--instinctive, blazing outrage. Clearly, death was even worse in his eyes than ours. The world and life should have been otherwise, and those whose faith is too pious to feel outrage are too pious by half and harder on themselves than God is."
I have been outraged by death. How about you?
In "The Journey" by Os Guiness there is a section called "A Time For Answers" which has some great thoughts to think about (throughout pages 116-118). So here are these thoughts for consideration in the process of taking at least a few "sabbath moments" today.
C.S. Lewis was asked by an interviewer during World War II what he would think if the Germans got the atom bomb, dropped one on England, and he saw it falling right on top of him. "If you only had time for one last thought, what would it be?" Lewis replied that he would look up at the bomb, stick out his tongue at it, and say, "Pooh! You're only a bomb. I'm an immortal soul."
The idea is that there is something beyond this world. That doesn't mean death doesn't matter.
"We follow One who stood and wept at the grave of Lazarus--not surely, because He was grieved that Mary and Martha wept, and sorrowed for their lack of faith (though some thus interpret) but because death, the punishment of sin, is even more horrible in His eyes than in ours...And that brings us again to the paradox. Of all men, we hope most of death; yet nothing will reconcile us to--well, its unnaturalness. We know that we were not made for it; we know how it crept into our destiny as an intruder; and we know Who has defeated it. Because Our Lord is risen we know that on one level it is an enemy already disarmed: but because we know that the natural level also is God's creation we cannot cease to fight against the death which mars it, as against all those other blemishes upon it, against pain and poverty, barbarism and ignorance. Because we love something else more than this world we love even this world better than those who know no other."
Life ought to be otherwise. Death is unnatural.
In "Long Journey Home," Os Guiness writes: "I first encountered the human implications of this belief many years ago through an older and wiser friend in Switzerland. We were together when he was told the news of a well-known Christian leader whose son was killed in a cycling accident. The leader had been devastated, but became the quiet admiration of all when he summoned up his strength, suppressed his grief, and preached eloquently on hope at his son's funeral. "I trust he feels the same thing inside,' was my friend's quiet comment.
"Several weeks later my friend received a telephone call from the Christian leader. Could he come and talk to him? We welcomed him and he went in to talk with my friend, but after a few minutes the rest of us left the house altogether. The walls of chalets are thin and what we heard was not the hope of the preacher but the hurt of the father--pained and furious at God, dark and bilious in his blasphemy.
"My friend's response was not to rebuke him but to point him to the story told of Jesus at the tomb of his friend Lazarus. Three times it says in the account in the Gospel of John that Jesus was angry. One of the words used is the Greek term for 'furious indignation'--the word used by Aeschylus to describe war horses rearing up on their hind legs, snorting through their nostrils, and charging into battle. Face to face with death, Jesus of Nazareth utters no pieties about faith and hope. The world God had created good and beautiful and whole was now broken and in ruins. In moments he was going to do something, but Jesus' first response was outrage--instinctive, blazing outrage. Clearly, death was even worse in his eyes than ours. The world and life should have been otherwise, and those whose faith is too pious to feel outrage are too pious by half and harder on themselves than God is."
I have been outraged by death. How about you?
Comments