Have you ever read the ancient book or letter or account written by a man named John while he was excommunicated from the greater Roman Empire? He had been a follower of Rabbi Yeshua and eventually a leader in the movement. Such an impactful leader that he was kicked out of civil society to live his days out on an island in the Mediterranean.
Apart from everyone, yet not alone.
It's a prophetic writing, that, while mysterious, wasn't meant to be mystically non-understandable. That said, I don't fully understand it sitting here at the end of 2024 in Midwestern America. But that doesn't mean I don't understand any of it.
At one point, John describes in detail what the throne room of the Godhead looks like. It's a wild sight that, thanks to 80's sci-fi and even the recent Marvel Thor series, has been tainted into a fantastical bit of stylistic silliness when I try to imagine what John would have seen. Regardless, his description struck me the other morning with Christmas in view. The humility of the temporal and tender advent co-mingling with the grandeur of the eternally powerful ancient. This singular Character, the Christ, seems to be capturing my divine imagination in a fresh way.
Humility and power.
Temporary and eternal.
While I don't believe John's writing was a work of fiction, I do believe the scene he described explains why so many of us long for, chase after, and attempt to create and design and cast vision for the things we do. It's so much other than what we can imagine that we can't help but try and grab ahold of even a flavor of the divine otherness that exists beyond the veil.
There's a freshness to the Ancient that seems to be gripping my heart and mind this Christmas. It's a hope-filled, paradigm-challenging, gut-punching sort of hope that doesn't make sense until I remember that it's pressed and folded into such Humble Grandeur. The Rescuer.
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