"Time keeps on ticking ticking ticking into the
future." I know so many songs, so many songs, that drift in and out of my
mind. Most of them are old songs from the 60s and 70s. The new ones are hymns
and other worship songs. Many are music-only songs from John Tesh, which I get
from my Pandora cell phone application. I have blue tooth in our new Honda CRV,
and even with high gas prices it’s an incentive to drive one more time to
Kroger’s (called Smith’s in Albuquerque) to get the popcorn I forgot.
Truth is, between all these stops to the store, replacing an
old reliable Nissan Altima that was no longer reliable with a new beautiful
car, and a new car payment, there is this fact: "Time is slipping slipping
slipping into the future."
I am generally ok with this and yet, sometimes it hits me as
I say to me, "I am not going to be here much longer."
I am torn between two worldviews. One says get as much done
as you can because time is "slip sliding away, slip sliding away."
Did you catch that? I just slipped (no
pun intended) into another song. "Though you are near your destination, Oh
it keeps sliding away."
The other says, “What’s the rush? Slow down, you’re moving
too fast. You've got to let the morning last … kicking down the cobble stones …
just having some fun and feeling groovey."
Wow where did that come from? Been so long since I heard that song I don't know
if I spelled groovey right! Does anyone
know what groovey is anymore? Did we
ever know its correct spelling?
Getting back to time-travel and life’s journey, I just read
Wendy’s take on a bike ride we took one weekend. Life is a bike ride. It’s
hard, it’s boring, it’s stressful, and yet once Wendy figured out the bike ride
as a living metaphor of life, the ride became fun. Good exercise too. Kind of
makes you feel you can live for ... how long?
Our older cat Missy is twenty. Does she think about the end?
I don’t think so. Truth is, until you and I die we really do not know what
death is. Do we? We have, however from time to time, witnessed the end of
things. We have witnessed the end of someone else. Those who have gone have not
returned and that speaks to each of us. There really is an end.
I have facilitated many funerals and memorial services for
those who have passed on. In every case without fail I have come to the
following irony. To myself I say, "This is weird." This death thing
should not be happening. This cutting-off-of-life thing should not BE
HAPPENING. It was only recently when I thought this thought that I shared it
with the mourners. For them I had an answer.
"This death thing was never in the original plan,"
I said. "Ok, ultimately yes, God had/has a plan and He knows all things
before, during, and after they occur. My point is that humans by design are
built to last forever spiritually, emotionally, and physically forever."
This final thought is the biggest irony of all. The answer
also to our opening song too! "Time
keeps on slipping slipping slipping into the future."
Death is the answer to life. Any of you who have seen death
in a loved one have seen the decay of their body. Many have experienced this in
your own body. Death is never pretty, only necessary, but God’s plan that we
live forever is still intact.
Did you know that God is a learner. "Jesus learned
obedience through the things that He suffered."
The body is what experiences the penalty of death. The human
body feels the stress of bad moral decisions, selfishness, bitterness,
un-forgiveness, murders .... The modern
hymn says, "… and the wrongs we have done and the wrongs done to us."
The expression "God knows" goes from cliché to "real bread"
in a flash of a micro-second.
The rejection of friends, family, the entire betrayal of
mankind, was put upon Jesus’ Body. He experienced sin, yours and mine, in a
personal way. He took the penalty and experienced it in His Body. He took it
all, and if there were no “dead-line” we humans would never find life.
Of course this particular subject line is increasingly
annoying. This Jesus stuff is to the mainstream media and world governments
"obsolete." It is as if humanity can say moral things change when
those who say this do not even know how we got here. Atheism has no hope. Try
going to an atheist when you feel the loss of one you love and loved.
A mindset without the Jesus of the Bible, the God of Abraham,
Isaac, and Jacob is atheism.
I have been reading through the Bible every year since March
28, 1994. I just read it over and over. It never gets old. In fact, it’s new.
"His mercies are new every morning."
I have internalized vast portions of Scripture as an actor
to allow Jesus to "play me" in churches. I have traveled 24 states
and 5 nations in 15 years.
Please know I am not showing my trophies. I can say the same
in another way. I am an unknown with little respect as an artist and only
slightly more as a minister- theologian. I have been shunned and criticized. I
am certain my future has in it more disdain than delight in the kind of art-ministry
I do.
My point is before you study the Bible, go to church, or
even see one of my Bible acting presentations, do this one thing. Go to your
body and see it for what it is. It does not last, but you do!
Ironically your very worst moment can be your best. Don't
believe all you hear. It has been said that atheists who take a lie detector
test, when asked if they believe in God, when they say they do not believe, the
test shows that they lie. The devil literally means slanderer. Lies are
disguised as truth. This mendacity is not only in the world, it is in your
body’s mind. It is in my mind. Kick it out. Throw the ring of power into Mount
Doom ala Lord Of The Rings. "Even demons believe and they tremble."
The trouble in the world, it’s terror, immorality, slander,
it’s hypocrisy and more are all revealed in your body. How do I know? Because
you are dying and you were not made to die. Something went terribly wrong. Jesus
made it right but the disease is in your body still. Seek "…on earth as it
is in heaven."
Before you read through the Bible or get yourself cleaned up
and dressed up, learn this. You never have to dress up, but to dress down to
find the God who "learns through suffering."
Be like the apostle Paul, a very bad man that became good by
going down to ground-zero. That’s where he was when he said, "Oh wretched
man that I am, who will save me from this body of death?"
It’s not only a substance abuser who does damage to his/her
body. We all can learn from this. We can learn the addiction to sin and the
inevitable death to the body.
It is here where we find life. It is here where we hear His
Words spoken then, tomorrow, and very presently, especially if I, you, are
dying at ground-zero. This is the place where "time keeps on slipping into
the future." Ends. The End!
It is shalom and a new beginning. Can you hear Him? Listen.
It's safe to continue the journey from here, too.
“The flesh counts for nothing. The Spirit counts for
everything.”
