The Ultimate Dimension
Bible Study
The Key to Life
Reflections on the Lord's Prayer
Object:
It strengthens me to know that the Lord's Prayer, as it is given to us in Matthew, ends "forever, Amen." Death is more than "the quietness at the eye of the storm." It is far more than a fading into nothingness. It is a passageway. It leads to a destination. It is a gateway to adventure into light and love, into the mystery of living. It is not as the little girl described her operation: "They told me it wouldn't hurt, then they stuck me with a needle and I disappeared." Death is far more than a disappearing act.
T.S. Eliot, in "East Coker," backs up the fact that "the mortality rate is still 100 percent":
They all go into the dark,
The vacant interstellar spaces, the
vacant into the vacant.
The captains, merchant bankers,
eminent men of letters,
The generous patrons of art,
the statesmen and the rulers,
Distinguished civil servants,
chairman of many committees,
Industrial Lords and petty contractors
all go into the dark...
And cold the senses and lost the motive
of action.
And we all go with them
into the silent funeral...
I said to my soul, be still,
and let the darkness come upon you,
Which shall be the darkness of God.
All of us go into the darkness; but for the Christian it is more than the "darkness of God." It is the blazing light of God! The revelation of hope!
There is a game that little children play called "the sounds of silence." They are quiet for a designated number of minutes, each counting the different sounds he can hear. The child who comes out of the silence with the largest number of identified sounds wins the game. The sound might be a bird's song, a jet's roar, a siren's wail, the screech of tires, the whisper of the wind in the trees. There is, however, a more sophisticated game wherein we hear "the sounds of silence." This is known as prayer, where the sounds of God break through, where we discover hope and reality, where God becomes a Living Presence, where life has no limits, and the "forever" is realized.
Are you satisfied to live as you are now living? Or do you yearn for a clearer, deeper life? Do you seek a new level, a new chance for being and growing? Are you groaning after a clearer consciousness of God? Christ offers you this. Abraham had this yearning and he started out not knowing where he was going. "He looked for a city whose builder and maker is God." He looked for a permanent way of life established by God. He sought a way of life, rich and meaningful here, and ever-growing and lasting forever. Christ opened up these doors for all of us. The persecuted Christians, hiding in the dark caves of the catacombs underneath the City of Rome, had a far clearer understanding of life than the rich and powerful Romans who lived on the topside in the blazing sun. The Christians had an existence based on an existence forever. The Master had promised them: "I will be with you forever, even to the end of the world." Come on, "enter into the joy of thy Lord." These early Christians were the people of the resurrection. Genuine Christians today are the people of the forever. Living as we do in a collapsing culture, we see, by faith, a solid sense of the forever. We are going somewhere, and there is a heavenly city at the end of the road.
Driving through the West in the summer, I am amazed at the great dry river beds, with only little puddles of water and just a trickle running in the main channel. Quite often fish are caught in these small puddles, but instinctively they seem to realize that the puddle is drying up and they are trapped. Following a strong urge, they flip out of the water on to the dry sand. They flip and flip and, if they are lucky, they reach the main stream and survive. Perhaps death, for the Christian, is a little like that. Realizing that one small "pool of life" is drying up, disappearing, by faith we plunge into the unknown mystery and discover that we have found the main stream: the great Flowing River of Life! "And God was there all the time!"
In his fascinating book The Immense Journey (New York: Random House, 1957), Loren Eiseley, a scientist, a naturalist, and a man of deep and exciting insights, writes: "Machines are getting smarter every day. I don't deny it; but... it's life I believe in; not machines." It's life we believe in -- "the end of life!" The open door.
Eiseley carries man from "the silt" to the amazing achievement of the present moment. He delves into the nucleus, the atom, the molecule, into the first stirrings of life on the planet; but he always comes up with mystery. He is fascinated by the strangeness and depth of life, and says that, even if we learn to create life, we will not have fathomed its deep powers and genius. Quoting Hardy, he says: All this is "but one mask of many worn by the Great Face behind." Eiseley sees the indication of the "Ultimate Dimension."
It is certainly true that the principle of the "survival of the fittest" had much to do with the evolutionary process, but we agree with Eiseley that it doesn't explain it all: the mystery, the mind, the love, the purpose, the destiny. There is another force at work in life that we view with reverence; it is never completely probed, nor ever totally controlled. There is always the built-in outreach in the soul of man.
I saw my father lose my mother at an early age. They had loved each other deeply. As a child I was aware of this love. I saw my father live in the confidence that my mother lived with God. The mystery of that "forever" sustained him. Ten years later I saw my father go to meet my mother, gladly and with certainty; and now I am convinced, in the depth of my soul, that they are happily together.
When we lose faith we are desperate; life flounders; it loses its purpose and its thrust. The troops that invaded Europe on D-Day moved under a great plan. Each man had a specific job in relationship to that great plan. Few of these men had ever seen the general and the staff responsible for the planning and for the coordinating of the vast invasion, and yet, none of these men doubted that the general was there, back of it all, overseeing it all. If faith in the general had failed, the invasion would have collapsed. When our faith in God fails, where we no longer have confidence in the total plan, the "Ultimate Dimension," then we fail to invade the world creatively and with love, and society collapses.
Peter Marin writes in the Saturday Review about today's youth and their struggle. He says it is hard for them to get a "fix" on life. In our contemporary philosophy, "when one falls, it is forever, for there is nothing underneath." Marin continues: "The empty existential universe of self-creation: it is a condition of the soul, an absolute loss and yearning for the world. One can become anything -- but nothing makes much sense." He picks up the thread again: "The huge gulf between truth and one's own pain" is more than they can bridge.
Peter Marin asked a student what she would do if she awoke in paradise. The student responded: "Walk around, get something to eat." And Marin continued: "I don't have any other answer. We will do what we do now -- but we will do it better. We will sit around a table talking; do some decent work... touch a bit more softly, more knowingly. We will understand a bit more... breathe a bit more and even think a little more... a bit more intelligently, more bravely."
But I wonder, as I look at the mystery of life, if there is not something grander, larger, deeper, more exciting in the "ultimate dimension" of things? What about the thrilling presence of Christ? What about traveling the universe, visiting a brand-new planet? What about working with Christ in serving in a brand-new planet? "Eye hath not seen, nor ear heard, neither hath it entered into the heart of man the things that God hath prepared for them that love Him."
A talented high school junior had reached bottom, as many other youth have today. Nothing made sense. He just couldn't go any further. Suddenly and accidently, he stumbled into a small group of exciting young Christians. Through encounter and struggle, this young man was amazed at the transformation in his own life -- a firsthand experience of the reality of a Living Christ, who could communicate with a contemporary world. He was set free: Joyful! Motivated! Seeking! Growing! Expectant! Helping others! Confident, yet open-minded!
When he had to leave the small group where he had discovered the exciting awareness of God, he felt that he was the only Christian going out alone into an immense un-Christian world. On the bus he discovered another Christian; he wasn't alone. In another state, he discovered a group of exciting young Christians and his fellowship was renewed. Now, at home, he is discovering vital, exciting Christians here. He is back in his old school, joyfully sharing a winsome sense of the "ultimate dimension," the "now and forever." He knows that the boundaries are limitless, and he is unafraid. He doesn't exactly know where the next step is, or where it will eventually lead him, but the "forever" beckons him and he is ready to go!
This isn't just a contemporary miracle. It is a recurring experience in the "immense journey." Centuries ago a young man, Abraham, was disillusioned with the shallow life that was lived out in the Ur of the Chaldees. It did not satisfy him -- something tugged at his soul that he could not understand. He answered an irresistible and strange inner call. He broke loose alone, not knowing where he was going, but he had to go. "He looked for a city that hath foundations, whose builder and maker is God." That quest continues; young people today are again caught up in the quest. A quest for a way of life that makes sense, that challenges them. They find it when they dare to follow Christ.
The old Hebrews were sustained by the fact that they knew they were going somewhere! The moment was important; the future was important; the pilgrimage was important. There was destiny, and that destiny was with God. Egypt and the desert did not stop them in their march to the Promised Land. They had a healthy sense of the ultimate dimension!
The early Christians were going somewhere. Their master had led them. He had been crucified and yet he was still going on, ahead of them. They were aware of his presence and his leadership. There was a "foreverness" in their fellowship. These struggling Christians, stumbling about with their tiny candles in the dark catacombs under the City of Rome, could see a greater light than could the Romans living under the blazing sun up on the topside of the earth. These Christians had a sense of the "ultimate dimension." God is now! God is forever! I am now! I am forever! They lived it! And they shared it with the world.
The songs that youth sing today reveal their frustration and confusion; they also reveal glimpses of hope and purpose:
Man's gotta go somewhere;
Can't stay where he is;
Gotta go way out there
And make it his...
Gotta fly beyond the sky;
Gotta blaze a trail;
Where he don't know all there is to know;
Way out where limbs can stretch and grow.
(Source lost)
Listen. There is something here of the wistful "forever."
When man can whip his fear of death, he is set free. Free from that which haunts us, depresses us, and imprisons us. When I fear death, I fear life. The Christian has been given a glimpse of eternal life. The result is amazing. He's not afraid of death anymore. The Everlasting Door stands wide open! And Christ holds it open.
We need to know what the first Christians knew. The resurrection is contemporary. There is not death but sin -- no death but voluntary separation from God. That separation from God is really death. There is left only "earth to earth and ashes to ashes." But trusting God and letting Him separate us from that which separates us from Him, we are freed by the power of His grace to enter into the "ultimate dimension." This is the everflowing river, the never-ending fellowship, the forever and forever.
Out of his genius, Einstein observed: "In our age there is neither space nor time but only space-time curved about the stars." This is true, but there is little warmth in it. My Australian friend Arthur Preston tells the story of an Australian soldier who felt that he was going to lose his life in the war.
He wrote this letter, delivered to his parents after his death:
It is only when we realize that death is a possibility that we really appreciate life. I feel more as if I want to grasp all the beauty of the world, make the most of life, combat all thoughts of sin and ugliness; to live the cleanest life I can. Be of good heart. I go upward, ever upward. I have the "green light" now.
Lillian Smith in The Journey (Cleveland: World Publishing, 1954) shared a keen insight: "I know now, death can kill a man. That is all it can do to him. It cannot end his life." Thomas Wolfe, in You Can't Go Home Again (New York: Harper, 1940), shared his own intimate struggle with life and death: "Something has spoken in the night, and told me I shall die... saying: 'to lose the earth you know, for greater knowing; to lose the life you have, for greater life; to leave the friends you love, for greater loving; to find a land more kind than home, more larger than earth.' "
But you do not go home alone. The Christian moves upward with One who has been there; who, in the words of Hemingway's Robert Fordon, speaks to us directly:
Now you will go for both of us. You must do your duty now... now you are going well and fast and far, and we both go in thee... now art thou doing what thou should. Now thou art obeying. Not me, but us both. The me in thee. Now you go for us both. Truly. We both go in thee now. This I have promised thee.
"Forever" is not a threat when you go with One who has been there, One whom you know and love and trust. The present is no longer a threat, when the meaningful future lies ahead, fully open before you.
It is still a significant thing that the Lord's Prayer ends with "forever." It has no meaning if it is just for the moment. What good is God, the Father, if He doesn't exist tomorrow? Why strive for the Kingdom, if it is only for ten years? What good is "daily bread," if you are fed today and starve tomorrow? What does forgiveness mean, if later it is to be cut off? Why pray for deliverance, if it is granted now and denied in the future? We cannot worship a temporary God. In Christ we see an eternal order of things. The "Ultimate Dimension" enriches the present. In faith life discovers its completeness. Christians are witnesses to the everlasting, as they move confidently through each phase of the "Immense Journey."
Our Father, forever! Thy kingdom, forever! Sustaining grace, forever! Forgiveness, forever! Deliverance, forever! "For thine is the kingdom and the power and the glory, forever and ever!" Amen.
T.S. Eliot, in "East Coker," backs up the fact that "the mortality rate is still 100 percent":
They all go into the dark,
The vacant interstellar spaces, the
vacant into the vacant.
The captains, merchant bankers,
eminent men of letters,
The generous patrons of art,
the statesmen and the rulers,
Distinguished civil servants,
chairman of many committees,
Industrial Lords and petty contractors
all go into the dark...
And cold the senses and lost the motive
of action.
And we all go with them
into the silent funeral...
I said to my soul, be still,
and let the darkness come upon you,
Which shall be the darkness of God.
All of us go into the darkness; but for the Christian it is more than the "darkness of God." It is the blazing light of God! The revelation of hope!
There is a game that little children play called "the sounds of silence." They are quiet for a designated number of minutes, each counting the different sounds he can hear. The child who comes out of the silence with the largest number of identified sounds wins the game. The sound might be a bird's song, a jet's roar, a siren's wail, the screech of tires, the whisper of the wind in the trees. There is, however, a more sophisticated game wherein we hear "the sounds of silence." This is known as prayer, where the sounds of God break through, where we discover hope and reality, where God becomes a Living Presence, where life has no limits, and the "forever" is realized.
Are you satisfied to live as you are now living? Or do you yearn for a clearer, deeper life? Do you seek a new level, a new chance for being and growing? Are you groaning after a clearer consciousness of God? Christ offers you this. Abraham had this yearning and he started out not knowing where he was going. "He looked for a city whose builder and maker is God." He looked for a permanent way of life established by God. He sought a way of life, rich and meaningful here, and ever-growing and lasting forever. Christ opened up these doors for all of us. The persecuted Christians, hiding in the dark caves of the catacombs underneath the City of Rome, had a far clearer understanding of life than the rich and powerful Romans who lived on the topside in the blazing sun. The Christians had an existence based on an existence forever. The Master had promised them: "I will be with you forever, even to the end of the world." Come on, "enter into the joy of thy Lord." These early Christians were the people of the resurrection. Genuine Christians today are the people of the forever. Living as we do in a collapsing culture, we see, by faith, a solid sense of the forever. We are going somewhere, and there is a heavenly city at the end of the road.
Driving through the West in the summer, I am amazed at the great dry river beds, with only little puddles of water and just a trickle running in the main channel. Quite often fish are caught in these small puddles, but instinctively they seem to realize that the puddle is drying up and they are trapped. Following a strong urge, they flip out of the water on to the dry sand. They flip and flip and, if they are lucky, they reach the main stream and survive. Perhaps death, for the Christian, is a little like that. Realizing that one small "pool of life" is drying up, disappearing, by faith we plunge into the unknown mystery and discover that we have found the main stream: the great Flowing River of Life! "And God was there all the time!"
In his fascinating book The Immense Journey (New York: Random House, 1957), Loren Eiseley, a scientist, a naturalist, and a man of deep and exciting insights, writes: "Machines are getting smarter every day. I don't deny it; but... it's life I believe in; not machines." It's life we believe in -- "the end of life!" The open door.
Eiseley carries man from "the silt" to the amazing achievement of the present moment. He delves into the nucleus, the atom, the molecule, into the first stirrings of life on the planet; but he always comes up with mystery. He is fascinated by the strangeness and depth of life, and says that, even if we learn to create life, we will not have fathomed its deep powers and genius. Quoting Hardy, he says: All this is "but one mask of many worn by the Great Face behind." Eiseley sees the indication of the "Ultimate Dimension."
It is certainly true that the principle of the "survival of the fittest" had much to do with the evolutionary process, but we agree with Eiseley that it doesn't explain it all: the mystery, the mind, the love, the purpose, the destiny. There is another force at work in life that we view with reverence; it is never completely probed, nor ever totally controlled. There is always the built-in outreach in the soul of man.
I saw my father lose my mother at an early age. They had loved each other deeply. As a child I was aware of this love. I saw my father live in the confidence that my mother lived with God. The mystery of that "forever" sustained him. Ten years later I saw my father go to meet my mother, gladly and with certainty; and now I am convinced, in the depth of my soul, that they are happily together.
When we lose faith we are desperate; life flounders; it loses its purpose and its thrust. The troops that invaded Europe on D-Day moved under a great plan. Each man had a specific job in relationship to that great plan. Few of these men had ever seen the general and the staff responsible for the planning and for the coordinating of the vast invasion, and yet, none of these men doubted that the general was there, back of it all, overseeing it all. If faith in the general had failed, the invasion would have collapsed. When our faith in God fails, where we no longer have confidence in the total plan, the "Ultimate Dimension," then we fail to invade the world creatively and with love, and society collapses.
Peter Marin writes in the Saturday Review about today's youth and their struggle. He says it is hard for them to get a "fix" on life. In our contemporary philosophy, "when one falls, it is forever, for there is nothing underneath." Marin continues: "The empty existential universe of self-creation: it is a condition of the soul, an absolute loss and yearning for the world. One can become anything -- but nothing makes much sense." He picks up the thread again: "The huge gulf between truth and one's own pain" is more than they can bridge.
Peter Marin asked a student what she would do if she awoke in paradise. The student responded: "Walk around, get something to eat." And Marin continued: "I don't have any other answer. We will do what we do now -- but we will do it better. We will sit around a table talking; do some decent work... touch a bit more softly, more knowingly. We will understand a bit more... breathe a bit more and even think a little more... a bit more intelligently, more bravely."
But I wonder, as I look at the mystery of life, if there is not something grander, larger, deeper, more exciting in the "ultimate dimension" of things? What about the thrilling presence of Christ? What about traveling the universe, visiting a brand-new planet? What about working with Christ in serving in a brand-new planet? "Eye hath not seen, nor ear heard, neither hath it entered into the heart of man the things that God hath prepared for them that love Him."
A talented high school junior had reached bottom, as many other youth have today. Nothing made sense. He just couldn't go any further. Suddenly and accidently, he stumbled into a small group of exciting young Christians. Through encounter and struggle, this young man was amazed at the transformation in his own life -- a firsthand experience of the reality of a Living Christ, who could communicate with a contemporary world. He was set free: Joyful! Motivated! Seeking! Growing! Expectant! Helping others! Confident, yet open-minded!
When he had to leave the small group where he had discovered the exciting awareness of God, he felt that he was the only Christian going out alone into an immense un-Christian world. On the bus he discovered another Christian; he wasn't alone. In another state, he discovered a group of exciting young Christians and his fellowship was renewed. Now, at home, he is discovering vital, exciting Christians here. He is back in his old school, joyfully sharing a winsome sense of the "ultimate dimension," the "now and forever." He knows that the boundaries are limitless, and he is unafraid. He doesn't exactly know where the next step is, or where it will eventually lead him, but the "forever" beckons him and he is ready to go!
This isn't just a contemporary miracle. It is a recurring experience in the "immense journey." Centuries ago a young man, Abraham, was disillusioned with the shallow life that was lived out in the Ur of the Chaldees. It did not satisfy him -- something tugged at his soul that he could not understand. He answered an irresistible and strange inner call. He broke loose alone, not knowing where he was going, but he had to go. "He looked for a city that hath foundations, whose builder and maker is God." That quest continues; young people today are again caught up in the quest. A quest for a way of life that makes sense, that challenges them. They find it when they dare to follow Christ.
The old Hebrews were sustained by the fact that they knew they were going somewhere! The moment was important; the future was important; the pilgrimage was important. There was destiny, and that destiny was with God. Egypt and the desert did not stop them in their march to the Promised Land. They had a healthy sense of the ultimate dimension!
The early Christians were going somewhere. Their master had led them. He had been crucified and yet he was still going on, ahead of them. They were aware of his presence and his leadership. There was a "foreverness" in their fellowship. These struggling Christians, stumbling about with their tiny candles in the dark catacombs under the City of Rome, could see a greater light than could the Romans living under the blazing sun up on the topside of the earth. These Christians had a sense of the "ultimate dimension." God is now! God is forever! I am now! I am forever! They lived it! And they shared it with the world.
The songs that youth sing today reveal their frustration and confusion; they also reveal glimpses of hope and purpose:
Man's gotta go somewhere;
Can't stay where he is;
Gotta go way out there
And make it his...
Gotta fly beyond the sky;
Gotta blaze a trail;
Where he don't know all there is to know;
Way out where limbs can stretch and grow.
(Source lost)
Listen. There is something here of the wistful "forever."
When man can whip his fear of death, he is set free. Free from that which haunts us, depresses us, and imprisons us. When I fear death, I fear life. The Christian has been given a glimpse of eternal life. The result is amazing. He's not afraid of death anymore. The Everlasting Door stands wide open! And Christ holds it open.
We need to know what the first Christians knew. The resurrection is contemporary. There is not death but sin -- no death but voluntary separation from God. That separation from God is really death. There is left only "earth to earth and ashes to ashes." But trusting God and letting Him separate us from that which separates us from Him, we are freed by the power of His grace to enter into the "ultimate dimension." This is the everflowing river, the never-ending fellowship, the forever and forever.
Out of his genius, Einstein observed: "In our age there is neither space nor time but only space-time curved about the stars." This is true, but there is little warmth in it. My Australian friend Arthur Preston tells the story of an Australian soldier who felt that he was going to lose his life in the war.
He wrote this letter, delivered to his parents after his death:
It is only when we realize that death is a possibility that we really appreciate life. I feel more as if I want to grasp all the beauty of the world, make the most of life, combat all thoughts of sin and ugliness; to live the cleanest life I can. Be of good heart. I go upward, ever upward. I have the "green light" now.
Lillian Smith in The Journey (Cleveland: World Publishing, 1954) shared a keen insight: "I know now, death can kill a man. That is all it can do to him. It cannot end his life." Thomas Wolfe, in You Can't Go Home Again (New York: Harper, 1940), shared his own intimate struggle with life and death: "Something has spoken in the night, and told me I shall die... saying: 'to lose the earth you know, for greater knowing; to lose the life you have, for greater life; to leave the friends you love, for greater loving; to find a land more kind than home, more larger than earth.' "
But you do not go home alone. The Christian moves upward with One who has been there; who, in the words of Hemingway's Robert Fordon, speaks to us directly:
Now you will go for both of us. You must do your duty now... now you are going well and fast and far, and we both go in thee... now art thou doing what thou should. Now thou art obeying. Not me, but us both. The me in thee. Now you go for us both. Truly. We both go in thee now. This I have promised thee.
"Forever" is not a threat when you go with One who has been there, One whom you know and love and trust. The present is no longer a threat, when the meaningful future lies ahead, fully open before you.
It is still a significant thing that the Lord's Prayer ends with "forever." It has no meaning if it is just for the moment. What good is God, the Father, if He doesn't exist tomorrow? Why strive for the Kingdom, if it is only for ten years? What good is "daily bread," if you are fed today and starve tomorrow? What does forgiveness mean, if later it is to be cut off? Why pray for deliverance, if it is granted now and denied in the future? We cannot worship a temporary God. In Christ we see an eternal order of things. The "Ultimate Dimension" enriches the present. In faith life discovers its completeness. Christians are witnesses to the everlasting, as they move confidently through each phase of the "Immense Journey."
Our Father, forever! Thy kingdom, forever! Sustaining grace, forever! Forgiveness, forever! Deliverance, forever! "For thine is the kingdom and the power and the glory, forever and ever!" Amen.
