Nothing, Everything, Everytime has its Place (Part 3/ Conc)
We are all drawn together by promise. What was, is and about to be.
Recently, I’m drawn to thoughts about God’s Promise to us. Christ. An all-encompassing thought or ideal that He, Himself, would come to mankind and continue to reveal who he is as the alpha, the omega…. and do it as a man, a god, and to do so with his very breath.
The baseball (from part 2), written as a fictional story, relates to us all. A belief. A thought. The idea that a baseball could be made even better. Sacred in the eyes of all baseball enthusiasts. That ball zinged the amazement of neighborhood boys, perhaps not a true story, but relational none the less. We all had our signed baseballs, our swedish meatballs, our epic sand castles.
All three were wonders of their time, their moment in history… then lost. I like the baseball story most because in the story Ray’s father signed it. It wasn’t what it was perceived to be in reality… it was so much more…
I can’t imagine a father out there, that wouldn’t stand at the threshold of giving his child the best, most implausible gift ever, and then choose not to, knowing that it would eventually become what it really was. It would eventually be destroyed. Christ is kinda like that. Our father, God, came to us… knowing he would have die.
Before you send me hate mail accusing me of heresy in saying that Christ isn’t what we perceive Him to be, hold on and let me finish. I’m trying to tell you He Is So Much More!!! He IS the moment, the memory, the spark of amazement. He was breathed into existence by a God who knew Jesus’s body, that man who he would become, who would, indeed, die. Like a perfect sandcastle pounded back into the existence of a peaceful, serene beach… it was a castle, but so much more. Forever a part of the beach landscape. Grains of sand infinitely missplaced.
Oh… how He loves us. He created life, he transformed it, he lived it and made it eternal. It wasn’t enough to come as one man. God, you see, comes to us in fleeting, and tangible ways. Sometimes, if you take a moment to step back you’ll find him in all the things that bring us together as one… a baseball, a sandcastle and an old swedish recipe. You can hide, ignore it, but he’s always, infinitely there for you.
I once wrote a story about Jesus being the most lied about person in the history of the world. Not that He is fictional, but rather that so many people, who do not really know Him very well, have assigned Him to being a small Person. But He’s not. He is the Alpha and the Omega. The I Am. The King of Kings. The Lord of Lords. The Holy One of Israel. And yet, He is my Friend who cares about me in every way.
One of the hard parts to evangelizing to non- christians is this very topic… it may well be why I’ve been stuck. Most believers, including myself, have been conditioned into believing. I can honestly say, however, all the grey that surrounded who Jesus was, is and will be in my mind was forced out into the light by evangelizing full on. A painful step for a nice Lutheran girl. Wonderfully painful!