Just Knowing (blog)

While looking at greeting cards today, my eyes fell upon a pale green one with an image of wispy white trees and glittery orange flowers.  Its golden scripted message, so bittersweet, reminded me that 'when the sun sets in one place it rises in another'.How is it that this card has travelled through time and place to reach me right where I am?Last year a close friend of mine moved half-way across the globe.  We talk on the phone now, before I go to sleep and after she wakes up.  I miss her real presence, and it feels strange to be out of sync with her.But it's comforting, in the darkness here, just knowing that she sees the sun and has begun a new day there.Last month our Pastor finished his work here at SHLC and followed The Lord's Call to another church.  I'm missing him and his family terribly.  But it's comforting to know that something new has begun, like the first rays of morning light, for that other congregation.  I will remember them, and pray for them, as we wait (actively) here at SHLC for God's plan for our church to be revealed.On Sunday, here at SHLC, we put away the decorations that adorn our church sanctuary every Advent and Christmas.  After finishing up with some odds and ends in the Narthex closet, I realized that everyone else had gone home and I was alone in the building.  It was so quiet and peaceful in the sanctuary that I decided to sit in a pew and rest there for a while.  My gaze fell upon a mosaic image, on our marble altar, of The Lamb (a symbol for Jesus, who gave up his life for us).It was dark in the sanctuary, the only real light coming from two stained-glass windows that rise up on either side of the altar.  Rays of sunlight, streaming through the colored panes, came together to illuminate the mosaic with a soft white glow.  As clouds advanced and passed over the sun outside, the light dimmed and brightened, hiding the image of The Lamb from clear sight and then revealing it fully again.  Mesmerized, I sat there for some time.As often happens when we sit still before The Lord (Psalm 46:10), a colorful kaleidoscope of thoughts and images came to my mind, disparate but all angling in and touching upon each other in amazing ways that suggested to me a pattern, a larger picture.I can't describe to you all that the picture meant to me.  We cannot capture these kinds of experiences, any more than we can invoke them.  We cannot hold on to them.  We can only live them, give thanks for them when they come to us, let them change us...And then, like the people we once held near and dear, let them go.The photographer draws near to an object, extending her camera lens out towards it, to bring its every detail into sharp focus.  After snapping the photo she steps back and retracts the lens, to take in the bigger picture surrounding the object.  What she loses in distance from the object, she gains in perspective, which brings meaning to the object.Distance can bring context, which in turn brings meaning.Each time the clouds outside the sanctuary windows advanced, and my clear focus on the mosaic Lamb was obscured, my mind worked to connect the thoughts and images swirling around inside of it, to bring back that larger picture I had seen.I thought about the decorations (even the odds and ends) that had all come together to bring a special kind of light and fullness to our Christmas celebration in the sanctuary there.I thought about how, in the Gospels, we first focus in on the individual stories (of Zechariah and Elizabeth, Mary and Joseph, the shepherds and the wise men), and then zoom out to see how they all fit together into the larger story of God's Plan for the world's salvation which, at Jesus' birth, was now on its way to fulfillment.The night of Jesus' birth was a new day dawning!I thought about the prophet Isaiah, who spoke God's Word of comfort to people living in darkness:"Arise, shine, for your light has come, and the glory of the Lord rises upon you" (Isaiah 60:1).Isaiah would not see the Savior with his own eyes, but I'm sure it was a great comfort to him, just knowing that, someday, others would live in the light of Jesus, that they would "look and be radiant", that their hearts would "throb and swell with joy", that nations would come to Jesus' light and kings to the brightness of His dawn (60:3-5).When I think of the fulfillment of that prophecy, at Jesus' birth and still to come (in the last day), I see a picture in my mind of light refracted, revealing the whole spectrum of brilliant colors that was once hidden within but is now gloriously revealed for all to see.Someday we will see how everything, all of the people we have known and loved, and all of our experiences, fit together into God's greater plan.  I imagine it will be something like looking through a kaleidoscope and seeing that one spectacular picture.It was so comforting to sit in the sanctuary on Sunday, and meditate on these things.I may not always be able to see the details of God's plan clearly, but it gives me peace (and joy!) just knowing that the light of all creation came into sharp focus at one point in time and space, not as an image through a camera lens, but as a real, flesh and blood person, Jesus Christ.  He went on to die for my sins and yours, on the Cross, and He rose again to life and is really present with us, even though for now we cannot see Him.We will all see Him clearly one day, no matter what side of the globe we are on.