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Sigh As The Chains Come Off


I consider that our present sufferings are not worth comparing with the glory that will be revealed in us.  For the creation waits in eager expectation for the children of God to be revealed. For the creation was subjected to frustration, not by its own choice, but by the will of the one who subjected it, in hope that the creation itself will be liberated from tis bondage to decay and brought into the freedom and glory of the children of God. (Romans 8:12-21) 
          Do people disappoint you? Have you considered that it might be a good thing? I know how I feel when I meet someone who is doing better in life than I am (from my perspective.) “Good for them, but what’s wrong with me?” Can you imagine being around perfect people? All your little flaws glaring, and sure they forgive them and they love you anyway (otherwise they wouldn’t be perfect) but you notice. The other day I had a conversation about Jesus when He walked the earth. He didn’t look like anything special, just your average Jewish carpenter. I don’t think people heard the Twilight Zone music warning them that He was something special. That’s part of why the Pharisees were upset with him. They were disappointed, and I think the disappointment went beyond the fact that He didn’t play the game by their rules. One day He climbed a mountain with some friends, and they got the “Twilight Zone” treatment. They saw Him transfigured.
          Someday, we’ll be transfigured, too. I won’t say we’ll be as impressive as Jesus was, but maybe… because maybe the transfiguration wasn’t as glorious as He can be (and is.) Can you imagine seeing the everlasting splendors and immortal horrors walking toward you on the street? Imagine the world on a much grander scale. It’s hard, but according to today’s passage, creation got dumbed down for our sakes. It got tamed. Just as we are waiting for the day when we won’t disappoint, nature is waiting for the day when it is set free.
          I’m not sure what that will mean. It could mean that the lion we see today is a puny thing. It might have been made puny so that lions didn’t kill all the people. It could also mean that the nobility that we seem to connect with the lion will be more than the shadow it is. What if we’ll stand in a category eight hurricane and laugh at the autumnal showers? I don’t know. It’s speculation, but I suspect that it’s a good the that things are in bondage now.  
         In The Great Divorce, C. S. Lewis shares another possibility. Have you ever cut yourself on grass? Imagine if grass were hard enough that it didn’t bend under your weight, and sharp enough that it sliced your feet to ribbons. Imagine apples that weigh so much that you can’t carry them. Imagine sunlight that that hurt your eyes, burned your skin, and had weight. Imagine if all that you see around you were real, and you were a ghost, unable to touch any of it. Someday, we’ll be given a world that isn’t a shadow of itself any more because we won’t be shadows of ourselves. Someday, we and all creation will sigh as the chains come off.

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