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Standing in Heaven

He needed me

When I found him he was crushed by the weight of reality

His irreducible love, his indomitable hope, had led him to the precipice of the lost

He invited me to come

He had passed through death’s portal and never relinquished the burden he carried

“Follow me” I heard him say

I chose to come and see

My questions were outweighed by his call, by his way of living

A power gripped my soul and held me captive to a dream

I’m standing in heaven

I chose to continually remain waiting letting others pass ahead

There was one who stood with me

I beheld him face to face

For we see in a mirror, dimly, but then we will see face to face For now I know only in part; then I will know fully, even as I have been fully known. And now faith, hope, and love abide, these three; and the greatest of these is love

First Cor 13:12-13

Facing God

To stand face to face with another is the defining encounter for knowing, for experiencing the spiritual dynamics of relationship. Face to face there is the potential for intimacy, when eyes speak and the intricate movements of the face communicate, when words are defined by inflections in the voice, and body language incorporates the entire person. Face to face is the call to embrace the person of the other who bears the image of God.

Beholding another face to face is a place of equality; if it is not then the encounter is not face to face. Without equality the dynamics of the encounter are disrupted by powers that separate one from another. Vulnerability is the essential openness for insuring a truly face to face experience with another. In the man Jesus we can see God face to face, it is in the Lord Jesus Christ that we see God join the creation to experience living as a human being. His continuing existence as a human being is where the one who is uniquely Son of God lifts us to learn how to find the invisible, ineffable, God in the human family.

Through the use of poetry, Paul the apostle expressed belief in a time of human and divine encounter when the vulnerability of humanity before the Lord is matched with the vulnerability of God. God’s vulnerability is an irreducible love, a love that enters the depths of creaturely difference to lift us up from the earth (ground) to become children of God.

Humanity’s perception of the voice of God will have moved from prohibition to ‘God our Father’.

There is no exchange or loss of power, rather there is the knowing of God as the divine lover, the relational redeeming creator who makes inviolable promises to his creatures; the surety of life resident in the source of life, the one God. This knowing eradicates the creature’s desire for surpassing the limits of knowing, a limit placed upon us as like, but other than, God.

This moment is the kiss of marriage, the intimacy of humanity incorporated into the Spirit of God. In Christ, humanity learns to live and not reach for fruit beyond the limits of the creature’s existence, an existence defined by the wisdom of God. The inward voice of human intellect seeking to explore regions beyond the structures of reality will turn from the prohibited tree and see innumerable trees in the garden of life, each rich with the fruit of life.

Beholding the Lord, the lowly man, the exalted Christ, the patience of eternity calling us ever forward into life, is not a single moment but a constant reality, a spiritual revelation as we are held in the being (Spirit) of God. Hiding and absence are words no longer descriptive of the divine-human relationship. We will know the Lord; all of us, and hierarchical structures of relationship will fade into harmonious creativity.

In Jesus Christ the Lord, part of what it means to be God is to be human. Humanity is incorporated into the being of God and this is an unchangeable reality. In the beginning of scripture we learn that one human being is an incomplete creation; God created us to be many. Jesus is Lord because he is the word, the wisdom of God incarnate, the one who is before all things. Jesus is Lord because he earned this exalted title as the one who conquered all that inhibits human beings from being temples for God.

Face to face we shall behold the one whose mercy endures forever. Face to face we are welcome at the table of God where life is the sustaining food and drink. Face to face the vulnerability of God humbles the children of God