Today, as I was eating lunch, I ran into this mental space of strain and trial. There's a lot of homework to do today, I still need to memorize Hebrew vocabulary, I have a date with my girlfriend tonight that I need to get ready for, and I'm sitting at this table, alone, with one of those awkward, used-to-be-friends-but-we-don't-really-talk-anymore kinds of situations sitting a table and a half over. All fairly standard college stresses, and nothing, certainly, that I haven't dealt with on many occasions prior.
Today, for whatever reason, however, it hit me in a profound way. There's so much to do, and so many things in my life are not precisely where I would have imagined them at age 8. The world has disappointed us all, in some small ways, and in some large ones. I woke up today to three posts in a row on my Facebook page about those who have departed from the land of the living - my grandmother, who died this past August, one of my friend's fathers, a friend I wasn't aware had suffered that kind of loss, and the death of a boy at my high school who committed suicide a week and a half ago.
Today, as I sat at that lunch table, looking out at the barren oak tree that stands, inches from death, sprawling out its branches against the sky-line of Spring Arbor University in resolute testament to the endurance of tradition here, I caught myself staring at the ground, ruminating about "poor me", the hapless little ministry student sitting in solitude eating his bowl of soup and bowl of cereal, drinking down the endlessly refillable juice-and-pop cocktail I make for myself when I get tired of the endless tap of Mountain Dew.
Today, I looked up to the sky.
The Greek word for 'heaven', is also translatable as 'sky', or 'atmosphere.' The Hebrew word carries a similar double-meaning. For the ancients, to speak of heaven was to speak of the brilliantly lit dome of color and wind over our heads. Looking at the ground from that second-story window, I could see an oak tree, massive, having grown so much and seen so many people come and go - and it is nearly dead, many of the branches no longer producing a leaf at any season. I saw the shadow it cast, and the dozens of scampering students covered by that shadow, rushing about the business of their lives - each concerned with the next due date, the next assignment, the next date, the next awkward situation, the next death.
But in the sky I saw clouds that God had shaped to his liking, moving freely high above our concerns. The seemingly concrete and towering structures that bore their shadow of anxiety down upon us could have no power over them - rather, the clouds cast their shadows on the whole face of the earth, and even that towering oak tree was subject to the light that they were free to allow or hide as they so chose. Beyond them was the vast, blue expanse, at once abstract and more realized, more full, more vast, than all the earth that experienced its light.
The Scriptures speak of the cares of this world, our anxiety and distractions, as just that - distractions. When we set our eyes on the next due date or bill, the perfect date or the tragedy of our loneliness, we take our eyes off of the skies. We forget to look up at the clouds. How easy it is, in this world, to see our own reflection, to become absorbed in our own struggles - and how difficult, when we look down, to see beyond the narrow space of our own personal courtyard, beyond the arena wherein our old nature, our old, dead oak tree, can still cast its darkening shadow, obscuring the light which descends from heaven.
The metaphor is imperfect, as all metaphors are, but it is nevertheless, I think, true. We see this truth in the Sermon on the Mount, specifically in Matthew 6:25-34. The Parable of the Sower in Mark's gospel warns us against becoming too absorbed in the anxieties of life, Mark 4:1-20, specifically in vv.18-19. To become absorbed in the worries of modern life is listed alongside drunkenness and dissipation as a way to lose sight of the coming kingdom of God in Luke 21:34. Ecclesiastes seems to speak to the vanity of our strivings, as does James. There are many things which deserve our attention, but none that deserve our grasping for control, our terrified uncertainty, if we truly acknowledge that Jesus Christ has been raised from the dead and the kingdom of Heaven is coming.
The realization, which I believe the beauty of the heavens are designed to convey, is that the beautiful realm of God's perfect rule - the places where human sin has not distorted Creation, where greed doesn't rip into the mountains he crafted or fill the rivers with poisons, where murder and lust are as alien as the farthest stars - that place rules over us. We can see these characteristics of God in His creative work, for the apostle Paul writes, "For what can be known about God is plain to them, because God has shown it to them. For his invisible attributes, namely his eternal power and divine nature, have been clearly perceived, ever since the creation of the world, in the things that have been made." (Romans 1:19-20 ESV) And if, in the context of Romans, the Gentiles, people who have not so much as heard the basic tenets of Judeo-Christian faith, can perceive God clearly through the created order, can speak of the heavens in terms of the sky and look away from the earth for a moment to gaze at the stars, it raises a question:
Shouldn't we?
Those of us who claim the name of the Prince of Peace, the Son of the Most High, the Lamb Who Was Slain, who inaugurated the kingdom of Heaven - shouldn't we take the time to look up at the clouds from whence our Lord shall someday return? Shouldn't we place a brief moment of gazing at the sky over and above our minute-to-minute concerns?
Someday the kingdom of Heaven is coming to earth, and all the chaos and evil that has made this world what it is will disappear in a moment. We'll be left with God, a worry-free civilization, and the sky. So let us, my brothers and sisters, look up to heaven today, and remember who rules the stars and clouds, and forget, for just a moment, how important our daily struggles seem to us. Stay connected to this world, don't grow distant - but never forget that you belong to the next.
Today, look up at the sky.
