Friday, March 11, 2011

Dead Man Before the Foundation of the World

"Look to the Cross…"

His last words reverberated through the corridors of time, and as I lay collapsed on the Balcony floor, I could once more look over the edge of existence, even through my tears. And instead of the Blue Marble of our Home World, or the expanse of star-filled space, I saw a vast undifferentiated void of darkness. I could sense, but not perceive with my eyes, a roiling cauldron of raw energy. Something entirely unique and inconceivably powerful was taking place.

In the background, barely audible at first, but growing rapidly and steadily in volume, was a chorus of increasingly thunderous song, splitting the darkness in galaxy-sized wave after wave of pure melodious joy. If sound had form and color it would be this. If music could shape reality, it would be this music. I forgot my shame and my relief. I forgot who, and even where I was. I forgot everything about me, and was carried along inexorably in what I came to realize could only be the Symphony of Creation at the very dawn of Time.

And then, and then… the Voice.

It exploded across the vast infant creation so that all else was rendered mute and invisible and insubstantial. It filled all existence with something, or perhaps Someone, so vibrant, so very alive, that life became, from that instant onward, something separate and distinct from the Voice Itself, but still inextricably of It, and from It and through It, sourced and sustained by It.

And I heard the very first Words of Power spoken into the void and roiling darkness.

"LET THERE BE LIGHT!"

And all darkness fled into nothingness and all around and through everything was light!

It was a light so all-encompassing, so gloriously radiant that it was somehow tangible and solid and more real than anything before or since.

And I witnessed and heard the commanding hymn of Creation, and saw the foundation of the world and time and space and energy being spoken into existence by the Voice Himself in a marvelous crescendo of love and power, as I sat enthralled and self-forgotten, and was audience to the Sons of God continuing their chorus of joyous praise at the Dawn of Creation.

And then, somehow, before, and behind, the very center of the New Heaven and Earth, I saw the image of a Lamb, as if He had been slain.

In the next instant, the Blue Planet, the vortex of God's eternal focus and attention, filled my viewpoint, as my consciousness was thrown through layers of time and space, deep down into the atmosphere blanketing the world.  And there I was, at the very navel of the planet, where all the slipstreams and incredibly complex threads of redemptive history wove themselves into a brilliant and complicated tapestry of human history. And I saw outside the City of David, the very same all-encompassing Light of Creation condensed and concealed within an oh-so-human Infant wrapped in swaddling cloths, laying atop a rough food trough in a Shepherd's Cave.

And the Sons of God were once more assembled in a chorus of resounding joy that filled the heavens and shook the earth.

And I heard another voice, authoritative and powerful, but merely human this time, speaking ageless words of prophetic comfort.

“Therefore the Lord Himself will give you a sign: Behold, the virgin shall conceive and bear a Son, and shall call His name Immanuel; God with us!"
And the same voice, yet again,

"The people who walked in darkness Have seen a great light; Those who dwelt in the land of the shadow of death, Upon them a light has shined."
Then I came back to myself, not willingly, but because I had no choice, else I would have stayed content (and more than content) as awestruck witness to events so majestic and powerful that I could have spent eternity immersed in their everlasting significance.

I knew by the wonder on my companion's face that he had shared with me all that I had just experienced.

"Why has He done this for me?" I whispered. And by that I meant everything, from the Creation, to the end of the Age, and on into Eternity.

"Because He loves you," he said, with unshakable conviction.

"Look to the Cross," he repeated yet again.