Breath Of Dust!

BREATH OF DUST

Today is the Friday of the weekend set aside to memorialize the 50th anniversary of the allied victory of "D-Day" at Normandy, France. The date is 6/3/94, and the time is 5:15 AM. I've just watched a fascinating trilogy of short subject films produced by the "A&E" cable network for educational use in schools. Using a travel-log format, the series took us on three separate journeys, each meticulously documented with stunning photography, deep subject matter and architectural wonders of the ancient world! Two trips to Egypt, one to Israel. Needless to say, I was enraptured! Spellbound!

So what does "D-Day" and the antiquities of Mesopotamia have in common? As I sit here writing, the President of the United States is busy visiting graveyards, cemeteries and tombs of assorted European "unknown soldiers". The very last image of the last of the three episodes was a visit to what many believe to be the oldest monastery in the world - Saint Catherine's, located at the foot of the approach to Mt Sinai, and which enshrines the reputed location of the burning bush of Moses' first meeting with Yahweh. This "holy shrine" houses an extraordinary room located in the dark lower portions of its cellar. Here, dating from the 5th century, (and stacked neatly atop one another, like so many cannonballs), rest every skull of every monk that ever served at this monastery over the last 15 centuries! Hundreds upon hundreds of them!

As I think of marble monuments to death the world over, from the Viet Nam wall to the pyramids, it seems to me man elevates his so-called "celebration" (or "remembrance") of someone's life by memorializing death!

"Life" (as most of us live it) seems a very "sticky" thing, indeed! If one has enough money, power and position, he can actually see to it that other people (not really different from himself) must remember him! As if, somehow, that "remembrance" is a sort of "substitute" life beyond the grave! It's not, of course - we all seem to know that! I mean, I have no more good idea what King Tut might have been like than I know how to fly! We might as well believe we can actually capture life in a bottle!

But absurdities aside, can you imagine being a "current" monk in that monastery? Standing facing the skulls of every "other", "formerly-like-you", who now exists not as some marble marker or "eternal" flame, but a real human skull someone once lived in! Hmmmm. Now does that sober your perspective on God just a bit? On life? On what (in the world?) we're HERE for?

I don't believe "good theology" derives from "cheap drama"; but, as religion goes, you'd have a hard time selling that to almost any monk of any religion I can think of! Funny how pomp, drama, ceremony, ritual, monument, cathedral-scale, perspective, and collective, mass-fervor seem to dominate the two most "social" areas of human experience - politics AND religion ! Both are systems of man! Both seek to persuade, mold, maneuver, manipulate, even warp or brain-wash men's minds! To what end? To dominate man's perception of life and it's purpose (both aspects of which promise to reveal man's "true" identity!).

Man invented wars! Why? Wars glorify and celebrate DEATH! Many religions and/or societies actually teach life's highest purpose is death! Man was born to die! That's it! So let's make the most of it! After all, we must learn to do the "best" (most) with "what we've got", right? And what we've "got" is a lifetime of "dying", right? Well, then??? See the logic? I think it's called "didactic reasoning" (and it's always circuitous!).

I know God! I know Him personally! I know how He thinks. I know how He wants. I know how He Loves! I wouldn't say I know ALL about Him. But then I don't imagine I know all there is to know about my family, either!

Our forefathers were mesmerized by death! And we are, without even thinking about it, too! We think our life has meaning if we're "good", or "nice", or if we "do good" things. But we're all a bit jaded by the abject reality that 100 years from now we too will be just another skull atop the heap! Sticky stuff, this "self-remorse" that mourns (in advance) the loss of self!

No, the only True Life is God's Word! What God Says IS Life! We "mourn" the "dust", and never give a thought to the breath-of life! God Speaks to Life FROM Life; - and we prefer the celebration of death??? God forbid!

One of the plagues of Egypt had to do with dust: Ex 8:17,18 "Aaron stretched out his hand with his rod, and smote the dust of the earth, and it became lice in man, and in beast; all the dust of the land became lice throughout all the land of Egypt. And the magicians did so with their enchantments to bring forth lice, but they could not: so there were lice upon man, and upon beast." God has said that life is in the blood! Lice are blood-suckers!

Egypt worshipped death! Their form of "resurrection", or "life-after-death", celebrated a continuation of this life in union with death - hence, mummification! God has not been silent on the subject of life and death. He makes no "bones" about our existence; Gen 3:19 "In the sweat of thy face shalt thou eat bread, till thou return unto the ground; for out of it wast thou taken: for dust thou art, and unto dust shalt thou return."

But Jesus said, Jn 11:25,26 "I am the resurrection, and the life: he that believeth in me, though he were dead, yet shall he live: And whosoever liveth and believeth in me shall never die. Believest thou this?" I believe these to be the 3 most critical words ever Spoken to man! B E L I E V E S T T H O U T H I S?

The single, greatest challenge ("gauntlet") ever "thrown" at men's "feet" - a Servant-Saviour Who IS LIFE-INCARNATE in resurrection before and after the cross! First, to/for His friend Lazrus, and then to/for all other willing "dust"!

The rebirth (new-breath) of Christ is Fruit fit for eternity. That God would endow common "dust" to share His "Forever" is more than miracle - more than life! His Grace and Love and Mercies are matched only by His Majesty in Judgment - forever and ever! Jesus Christ (God's Masterpiece in Clay) - SO IT IS WRITTEN +++AND+++ DONE - IN THE DUST! Now is death dead! And to Live IS Christ!