2/27/2016
#174 HUGS
This
meditation began when I came upon the Apostle Paul’s encouraging words in his
second letter to the Saints at Corinth:
Therefore, being always
of good courage, and knowing that while we are at home in the body we are
absent from the Lord— for we walk by faith,
not by sight— we are of good courage, I say, and prefer
rather to be absent from the body and to be at home with the Lord. Therefore we also have as our ambition, whether at home or absent, to be
pleasing to Him. 2 Corinthians 5.6-9 NASB
This moved me
to ask myself the question;
Self, I said,
on Resurrection day when I leave this body and arrive at my “home with the
Lord,” and meet those I love who have preceded me, will there be hugs and
kisses all around?
At 12:10 P.M. on September 7, 2015, my
Childbride’s heart stopped beating. I believe she felt this parting kiss but
the Light of the Glory of God was already growing brighter as she was being
drawn out of the gathering darkness of this life into the arms of her Savior,
Lord and King.
She left 61
years of wonderful memories behind to comfort me. She left behind her memories
of pain, fear and disappointment as well. I believe she has good memories now --
none marred by any shadow of darkness.
I also believe
she knows where I am and knows the Triune God who makes His home in my heart
will call me home to the place where she is now, when it is His time – when I
have completed the “good works He has planned” for me.
In the meanwhile,
during the time which may be “the most trying time of all” according to T.S.
Eliot, I am just beginning to scratch the surface of what it means to live one
day at a time. God’s Word thru Moses to the Sons of Asher as they prepared for
the struggles ahead (Dt. 33.25) is also a Word to me, and to all facing new challenges: “As your day, so shall your strength be.”
He is the giver of my days, one day at a time, and He has promised that he will
never run out of grace: “God is able to
make all grace abound to you, so that having all sufficiency/contentment in all
things at all times, you may abound in every good work.” (2 Corinthians
9.8)
Early in
February the Wesley Village Community was celebrating the month’s birthdays at
the noon meal. It is the custom here for a fine pianist resident to play “oldies
but goodies” from a very thick song book. After we had eaten, the Arranger of Events
stood up to introduce those with a birthday. His first words were also a
tradition; “who knows the name and writer of the last song Nora played today?
Several made a guess but didn’t get it right. I recognized “The Unchained
Melody” and two others of the six around my table agreed, but no one knew who
the writer was. I raised my hand and named the song. The Arranger looked at his
sheet and said, “sorry, that’s not right.”
Finally
someone identified the song as “I Will Always Love You,” by Dolly Parton. The Arranger
heaved a sigh of relief and awarded the correct guesser with a Hershey bar. I
went home and spent an interesting half hour in Googleland. To make a long
story short, here is what I found.
The Unchained
Melody was written by two guys I never heard of back in 1955 for a movie
entitled “Unchained” starring the former football star Elroy “Crazy legs”
Hirsch. The sound track and three other single versions of the song by
different singers all were in the top 20 that year. Time passed, many others
made records, but the Righteous Brothers single in 1965 was the one that made
it memorable and famous. (At least to me us)
More time
passed and many more singers made singles, many of them in the “top songs of
year.” In 1996 Dolly Parton took the most memorable bars of the music, rewrote
the words and the rest of the music and it came out as a country western she
titled “I Will Always Love You.” The latest incarnation of the song, “You’ve
Lost That Loving Feeling” showed up in the movie, “Top Gun.”
I downloaded
the Righteous Brothers’ version and was playing it at the same time that I was
thinking about hugs and heaven. The opening words and recurring theme of the
song jumped out at me and focused my thinking and meditating about these things;
“Whoa! My love, my darling
I’ve hungered for your touch
A long lonely time
And time goes by, so slowly
And time can do so much
Are you still mine?
I need your love
I need your love
God Speed your love to me.
Lonely rivers flow to the sea, to the sea
To the open arms of the sea, yeah!
Lonely rivers sigh ‘wait for me, wait for me’
I’ll be coming home, wait for me.”
The Righteous Brothers_ Unchained Melody (with
lyrics)-SD.mp4
This is a
song of human, time-bound love burdened with longing and uncertainty. But I
think it expresses in an earthly way the love of the Shulammite Maiden in
Solomon’s Greatest Song;
“Set me as a seal upon your heart,
as a seal upon
your arm,
for love is strong as death,
ardor is fierce
as the grave.
Its flashes are flashes of fire,
the very flame of
the Lord.
Many waters cannot quench love,
neither can
floods drown it.
If a man offered for love
all the wealth of
his house,
it would be
utterly despised.”
Song
of Solomon 8.6-7 ESV
Here we pause
and take three slow, deep breaths. If we were together, this would be the time for
questions or comments. If you have any, make a note. If they are not answered
by the time we get to the end of this little journey, please feel free to send
them to me.
In the
context of the thoughts above, I started a list of the things I believe to be
true that might reflect on the answer to my question about hugs and kisses-all-around
in “that great gittin’ up mornin’.”
I believe
that;
1.
Jesus’
resurrection was a bodily (physical) resurrection and He has a physical spiritual
body today in glory.
2.
At
Jesus’ second coming, my resurrection will be a bodily (physical) resurrection
and once more I will be a whole person as God intended, a physical spiritual
body fitted for endless life in the New Heaven and the New Earth. All who have died
in Christ before me will be the same.
3.
My
transformed, resurrection body will be more like my first, old body than I
expect or understand.
4.
The
New Heaven and the New Earth will be more like the old heaven and the old earth
than we know or understand. God will take up where He left off when our first
parents blew it – he will finish the work that he began at creation and in in
the garden before the fall of man.
5.
Based
on these four assumptions, I believe that when I meet my childbride and dearest
friend in heaven the “hunger for your touch” will be satisfied once more,
beginning with a real hug!
These five beliefs
are the fruit of a lifetime of reading, studying, and teaching the Word of God.
I could make a pretty good Biblical case for the first 4 points and the logical
deduction that follows in point 5. But all of this would take time, better
eyes, and great effort – and the end would be just another book. Here is what
the wisest man who ever lived might say to that:
“The words of the wise prod us to live well.
They’re like nails hammered home, holding
life together. They are given by God, the one Shepherd.
But regarding anything beyond this, dear
friend, go easy. There’s no end to the publishing of books, and constant study
wears you out so you’re no good for anything else.
The last and final word is this:
Fear God.
Do what he tells you.
And that’s it.
Eventually God will bring everything that we
do out into the open and judge it according to its hidden intent, whether it’s
good or evil.” Ecclesiastes
12.11-14 MSG
These are
thoughts to ponder. I have no doubt that they are true but the temptation to go
beyond these basics to all kinds of speculation is very strong and I would not
want to get ahead of God here. So my pondering will continue in the spirit of
the first Psalm;
Blessed is the man
who walks not in the counsel of the wicked,
nor stands in the way of
sinners,
nor sits in the seat of scoffers;
but his delight is in
the law [instruction] of the Lord,
and on his law he
meditates day and night.
But I am not finished yet. Perhaps I
should post here the warning found on ancient maps:
BEWARE!
BEYOND THIS POINT THERE BE DRAGONS!
Now, to go
back to page 4 to what the Shulammite Maiden said; “for love is strong as death…” Have you ever wondered
what this means. Perhaps what she meant may not be entirely clear but I wonder
if the Apostle Paul might have been clarifying her statement in 1 Corinthians
13.13; “But now faith, hope and love abide, these three; but the greatest of these is love.”
In this chapter, and other letters, Paul makes it pretty clear
that in the New Heaven and the New Earth neither faith nor hope will be needed
– at least not in the sense we think of them today. Faith will be replaced
sight, the expectations of hope will be replaced by the fullness of present reality
and glorious fulfillment. Why do you think he does he not say what happens to
love?
Can it be that Paul’s understanding of love was that it is not
something “you can’t take with you,” but that it will go to the New Heaven and
the New Earth with the spirits of those who died in the Lord physically or will
be taken up on the last day? It is hard to imagine the New Heaven and the New
earth without love.
Here is where a gang of Sadducees shows up to pick a nit;
…the Sadducees came to
him, who say that there is no resurrection, and they asked him a question, saying,
“Teacher, Moses said, ‘If a man dies having no children, his brother must marry
the widow and raise up offspring for his brother.’ Now
there were seven brothers among us. The first married and died, and having no
offspring left his wife to his brother. So too the second and third, down to the seventh. After them
all, the woman died. In the resurrection, therefore, of the seven, whose wife
will she be? For they all had her.” Matthew 22.23-28 ESV
Jesus’ answer was instructive, perhaps even a clarification of
the assertion in the Song of Songs;
But Jesus answered them,
“You are wrong, because you know neither
the Scriptures nor the power of God. For in the resurrection they neither
marry nor are given in marriage, but are like angels in heaven. And as for the
resurrection of the dead, have you not read what was said to you by God: ‘I am
the God of Abraham, and the God of Isaac, and the God of Jacob’? He is not God
of the dead, but of the living.”
This might seem to raise more questions than answers. It does
not give an easy answer but I think it gives some guidance. Here it what it
says to me;
1.
The confusion is the result of the failure to know the Scriptures and the failure to know the power of God. This
suggests to me that we may be overlooking what is in revelation that might be
helpful. I had read, studied, preached, and taught 1 Corinthians 15 since I was
a teenager. But I had never read it devotionally, the way I have since Joan
went to her reward.
2.
Jesus does not say that there will be no love
in the New Heaven and the New Earth –he only implies that there will be no
physical expression of that love that makes babies, since there will be no
marriage like that of the old heaven and the old earth. But marriage is part of
God’s design and far more than just the way to reproduce and multiply. We will
not know the differences before the Second Coming of Christ – but that only
suggests that we patiently wait for the reality, not speculate wildly on the
possibilities in the meantime.
There is a further point or possibility implicit in this
meditation from the very beginning – it is found in God’s Word to Moses in
Deuteronomy 29.29;
“The secret things
belong to the Lord our God, but the things that are revealed belong to us and to our children forever, that we may do
all the words of this law.
Is the question I asked at the beginning, about one of the “Secret
Things that belong to the Lord”?
When I leave this natural body behind and arrive at my “home
with the Lord,” and meet those I love who have preceded me, will there be hugs
and kisses all around? (At the time of the Second Coming of Christ, in the Resurrection.)
Am I speculating wrongly on things that are none of my
business? Perhaps, but I have no sense or feeling at this stage that I am
trespassing. So I will press forward.
I think it may be helpful to remind us here of the early
history of the first marriage and family. This is something I wrote in March of
2012. It was the beginning of a paraphrase of the story of God.
+++
GODSTORY
Once upon a time, before the
beginning, there was only GOD. GOD never had a beginning, He always was. His
name is I AM. There are four things
that make I AM absolutely unique.
I AM is self-existent. He is totally self-contained, depending on no one or no thing for all that He is and all that He does. You might say He
continuously wills His own existence.
I AM is infinite—with respect to time, He is Eternal. There is no
beginning or end or succession of moments in GOD’S being or consciousness. With
respect to space, He is Omnipresent--He is neither included
in space nor absent from it. He is above all space yet present in every part of
it.
I AM is immutable. He does not change, grow, develop, evolve--He just
is.
I AM is the One and Only True God. Subsisting beneath
his One Essence are Three Persons, each fully God, making
Him a Triune Being. But He is not composed of parts. Philosophers, theologians,
scientists and psychiatrists have discussed and debated and sometimes even
gotten violent over the idea of a Triune God, but Being The Trinity never seems
to bother Him.
If you are paying close
attention you will have noticed that I speak of I AM in the present tense even though any respectable biography
should begin in the past. The fact that I
AM lives in the eternal present, means that I have to make a choice, and
neither option is perfect. Either I say He “is” infinite and cause some
discomfort to the reader who is thinking that “once upon a time” suggests past
tense, or I say He “was” infinite and give teachers of English and quarrelsome
Systematic Theologians the shivers. You will just have to bear with me as I do
the best I can.
At this point in the story
neither time nor philosophers nor theologians had yet been created so there was
no one to be troubled with it—I AM
certainly had no problem with it and when the time came for Him to speak about
tense and person, He just naturally used the plural in the present tense; “Let Us make man in Our own image.”
Within the Trinity there is
fellowship and communion. God the Father devised a plan to create the universe.
When the Plan was complete, God the Son agreed to carry out the Plan and God
the Holy Spirit agreed to implement the results of the Plan. When there were
theologians, some of them called the Plan, God’s Eternal Counsel,” or “God’s Eternal
Decree,” others had different
names and ideas about it and so another debate began and has gone on ever
since.
In six days GOD created the
universe. The Father spoke, the Son acted, the Holy Spirit moved, and all that is took form from nothing. When
the job was complete and perfect from the farthest star to the smallest
starfish on the beach of a beautiful ocean, He made Man in his own image, as like Him as a created, finite creature
could be. He planted a garden East of Eden where the first man and the first
woman could live and flourish, have babies and take charge of the whole thing
as God’s Resident Managers of His whole creation.
I AM gave
them all that was in the garden, with one exception; they were not to eat from
the tree of the knowledge of good and evil. If they did, they were told they
would surely die. It was a small test, an easy test. For a period of time they
obeyed, walked with I AM in the
garden in full communion and enjoyed all He had prepared for them. They walked
in true knowledge, true righteousness and true holiness because I AM had made them in his image and they
could think his thoughts after him. His gift of reason prepared them to love
Him, know all truth, and understand and manage His creation.
But because they were made so
that they could freely choose to love and obey Him—I AM gave them the freedom to disobey as well. He warned them that the
price of disobedience would be death. Knowing they would disobey, He also
included in His Plan a way of redemption and restoration. It was not long
before trouble arrived in the form of a snake. The snake was beautiful and
clever, and was the agent of Satan, a fallen angel. One day, long in the future
a great poet would imagine this snake this way;
So spake
the enemy of mankind, enclosed
In serpent, inmate bad, and toward Eve Addressed
his way, not with indented wave,
Prone on the ground, as since, but on his
rear
Circular base of rising folds, that towered Fold above fold a surging
maze; his head Crested aloft, and carbuncle his eyes; With burnished neck of
verdant gold, erect Against his circling spires that on the grass,
Floated
redundant. Milton, Paradise Lost
Soon the snake began to talk
with the Woman about the forbidden fruit on the tree at the center of the
garden. He encouraged the woman to think for herself and act for herself and it
wasn’t long until she did. She began to take a really close look at the tree
and its fruit. She often rested in the shade of the tree and came to admire the
fruit for its natural beauty. It also looked like it might be very good to eat.
And she believed the snake when he told her it would make her exceeding wise,
almost as wise as I AM himself. She
liked the idea of “knowing what was really happening.”
The snake was often in the
neighborhood and never missed an opportunity to stop and visit with the woman
and to point out that being as GOD, knowing “what is really happening,” being
able to decide what to do and what not to do, would be a very good thing. It
would make her wise and save her from having to ask I AM so many pesky questions.
The woman finally gave in, ate
some of the fruit, gave some to the man. Everything changed. In the blink of
eye a chill wind blew through the Garden, they noticed they were naked and were
ashamed. They sewed some fig tree leaves together to cover themselves. Behind
the chill wind came I AM. They hid
and were afraid.
I AM called
to them and they crept out of the bushes looking more than sheepish. What
followed was not pretty. God made them clothes from the skins of animals and
for the first time blood was shed in the Garden.
The snake was cursed and
sentenced to creep in the dust of the earth throughout all his generations. The
snake was warned that in the end, a child of a woman would destroy him. The man
was sentenced to get his living by the sweat of his brow and eventually return
to the dust from which he was made. The woman was sentenced to much pain in
childbirth and a life in which she could neither live with her husband nor
without him.
Adam and Eve were kicked out
of the garden into a hostile world where they would suffer separation from I AM and eventually physical death as
well. An angel with a flaming sword was set to guard the gate to the garden so
they would have no access to the tree of life. All things considered, they
concluded that “being like God” was not all the Snake made it out to be.
Cain was the firstborn of
Adam and Eve. He was a surprise. Soon a brother, Abel, was born. He was not
such a surprise. Many other brothers and sisters followed in time. Cain became
a tiller of the soil and Abel became a keeper of sheep. Although the direct,
face-to-face revelation that their parents had enjoyed in Paradise had ended,
Adam and Eve had talked much about I AM there
was a strong, true tradition fresh in their minds.
The brothers, being made in
the image of I AM, knew I AM was there, and knew He held them
accountable. Both felt a need to worship. Each brought an offering to I AM --the firstborn of Abel’s flock was
respected and accepted, the fruit of the soil brought by Cain was not. Cain did
not take this well and murdered his brother. God did not take this well and
exiled Cain from the soil he loved and the friends he knew...and he became a
vagabond and fugitive upon the earth.
From then on, Adam’s children
began to multiply exponentially and fill the earth. There were a few who
worshipped I AM but most went the way
of Cain. Being “as gods,” they did exactly what pleased them and called it
“good.”
One day I AM looked down and saw that the whole earth was corrupt and
filled with violence. He found one good man named Noah and confided in him;
“the end of all flesh has come before me; for the earth is filled with violence
because of them; and I am about to destroy them with the earth…Make for
yourself a very big boat…”
+++
Hang in there, dear friends, there is one more question that
is bound to arise—skeptics are abundant and seldom keep their peace. The whole
of 1 Corinthians 15 is relevant here, I will just quote a few verses from Gene
Peterson’s paraphrase, The Message, 15.35-38;
“Some skeptic is sure to
ask, “Show me how resurrection works. Give me a diagram; draw me a picture.
What does this ‘resurrection body’ look like?” If you look at this question
closely, you realize how absurd it is. There are no diagrams for this kind of
thing. We do have a parallel experience in gardening. You plant a “dead” seed; soon there is a flourishing plant. There is no
visual likeness between seed and plant. You could never guess what a tomato
would look like by looking at a tomato seed. What we plant in the soil and what
grows out of it don’t look anything alike. The dead body that we bury in the
ground and the Resurrection body that comes from it will be dramatically
different.”
I have a small book that was given to us soon after we were
married over 60 years ago. It originally was a gift from my wife’s Aunt Beta, a
missionary lady in Shanghai in 1941, to her sister who lived in a State
Hospital for many years. The Parables of
the Christ –Life by I. Lilias Trotter was published in London, there is no
date.
Lilias Trotter was an artist and Protestant missionary to
Algeria. She was born July 14, 1853 in London. She died on August 28, 1928, at
El Bair, Algeria.
Her book is a beautiful description in words and pictures of a
year in the life of the wild plants growing on a small hillside in North Africa.
She quotes the New Testament through the book as she compares the life-cycle of
weeds and wildflowers with the normal Christian life. Things being connected
they way they are when we deal with God, there is no doubt that she had 1
Corinthians 15.35-35 in mind when she wrote the following;
“In the early spring, the annuals that
clothed the field each had one life then; a perishing life, though it looked so
strong in its young vigor. Left to itself, it stood ‘condemned already.’
But
the critical moment came, changing the whole destiny, when a new birth took
place: the vitalizing pollen was received by the pistil, and set up the reign
of a fresh undying creation. All that had gone before in the plant’s history
was a preparation for this moment: all that followed was a working out to its
fruition…
The
hour at which this new birth can take place in the flower is the hour at which
the stigma is able to grasp the pollen that comes to it, blown by the wind or
carried by the bees and butterflies. Up till then the grains fall off unheeded;
but now it develops a surface, glutinous in some cases, velvety in others, that
can clasp and keep them fast. The pollen grains lay hold at the same moment by
their sculptured points and ridges. They “apprehend” each other, and the
pollen, with its mysterious quickening power, does the rest. As soon as it is
received it sinks down into the innermost depths of the flower’s heart, and
there starts the beginning of the new creation.
The
most wonderful secrets of the plant world hang around the process of
fertilization, and the ways in which these springs of the second birth are
guarded and set going, but the flower’s simple work is to open and receive.”
(It is when this has happened that the original plant begins
to die. There is much more to this but we must move on. The book is available
at Amazon.com in paperback for about $5 – you should get it)
I have to add one more brief section from the Resurrection
chapter of 1 Corinthians 15;
42-44 This image of planting a dead seed and raising a live plant is
a mere sketch at best, but perhaps it will help in approaching the mystery of
the resurrection body—but only if you keep in mind that when we’re raised,
we’re raised for good, alive
forever! The corpse that’s planted is no beauty, but when it’s raised, it’s
glorious. Put in the ground weak, it comes up powerful. The seed sown is
natural; the seed grown is supernatural—same seed, same body, but what a
difference from when it goes down in physical mortality to when it is raised up
in spiritual immortality!
+++
Here are the words Paul uses to describe the resurrection body
that will ultimately clothe the spirit of every child of his who has died in
the Lord or been taken up alive at the final consummation of all things:
·
Mystery
·
Glorious
·
Powerful
·
Raised
for good
·
Spiritual
body
·
Alive
forever
·
Supernatural
·
Made
in image of God
·
Spiritual
immortality
·
Heavenly
·
Totally
changed
·
Out
of the grave
·
Beyond
the reach of death
·
Never
to die again
·
Imperishable
·
Incorruptible
·
Immortal
·
Triumphant
life
With all that has come before, I will attempt to briefly list
the things that suggest to me there will be hugs at the reunions taking place
in the New Heaven and the New Earth when Jesus has come again and set all things
finally in order.
THE CREATION OF MAN
God made our first parents as complementary beings in body,
soul and spirit.
MARRIAGE
God decreed that the two were to join together, become one
flesh, be fruitful, bear children, and assume dominion over the rest of
creation.
BEFORE THE FALL
Adam and Eve were as much like their Creator as finite
creatures could be and had the full potential to grow and develop as their
Creator intended, limited only by one small test, the tree-of-the knowledge of
good and evil. They were forbidden to eat from it. To disobey was to die.
HAD THEY NOT DISOBEYED
We do not know specifically from Scripture what would have
taken place had they chosen to obey. Would they have continued to enjoy the real
presence of God? Would they have lived forever by His grace? Would their
children fear God and do what He told them to do? We don’t know, but there are
enough hints to suggest God’s original plans for our first parents went far
beyond tending the garden and making babies. He took the risk of giving them
free wills so they could love Him by choice, but he had a backup plan as well.
LIKE ANGELS
Jesus tells us that like the angels, human beings will not
marry in the resurrection. For angels, this is nothing new – the angels present
at the resurrection will be no different than when they were created. Children
of God at the resurrection will be different in they their natural, earthly
bodies will have been transformed into spiritual heavenly bodies.
There is no way of even guessing what God will do when he
takes up where he left off – but I believe he will finish what he started. There
may be no further need to produce babies, but marriage is far more than
producing babies. We have encountered mystery here, only God can sort it out
and I am perfectly content to leave it in his hands. The one thing I feel
certain of is that when I meet my wife of 61 years on that great day, and we
are in our resurrection bodies, I will give her a long hug and more than one
kiss. And if I am wrong, then what God has planned for us will surely be far better
and more glorious than anything my earthbound mind and spirit can imagine.
"A hug, said Pooh, "is always thee right size!"
