Interesting Wedding Entrance

Filed under: Echoes of Another World
-----
If you haven't seen this wedding entrance, you definitely have to check it out. Then read why my friend & RUF Campus Minister, Shaynor, finds himself crying like a girl...



From the RUF Baylor Blog:

"Which brings us back to the video. I find it extremely compelling, and I've spent the past few hours trying to figure out why not only have I watched it several times, but I tear up over it and am really moved by it. Not only I, but millions have been drawn to it. Again, usually when something spreads like wildfire in our culture I tend to be skeptical and assume something is wrong with it. Which is typically true. However, this phenomenon did not affect me that way, and again I ask why?"

Read it all here.

The Hopeless Task for Human Heroes

Filed under: "Echoes of Another World"
-----
Okay, I'll admit it. I really am looking forward to watching "The Dark Knight." I've heard so much about Heath Ledger's role as the Joker, so much about the issues the film raises. And then I read Margie Haack's post and it just sealed the deal for me. The Dostoevesky quote was icing on the cake....

At the end of the Dark Knight I was left in want of a hero large enough to make life meaningful again, someone who could bring light to the set, who could heal the lives ruined by injustice, crime, ambition, violence. The Batman, the faltering, finite hero we love, disappears into the night still determined to try to fix the world, but everyone, including him, knows how impossible and grievous this calling will be.

The movie underscores how hopeless this task for human heroes – to heal the earth of all its injustices, to offer choice even to The Jokers of the world. We wait for consummation, like Simeon the priest waited for the Consolation of Israel. Dostoevsky describes it perfectly in The Brothers Karamazov:

I believe like a child that suffering will be healed and made up for, that all the humiliating absurdity of human contradictions will vanish like a pitiful mirage, like the despicable fabrication of the impotent and infinitely small Euclidean mind of man, that in the world’s finale, at the moment of eternal harmony, something so precious will come to pass that it will suffice for all hearts, for the comforting of all resentments, for the atonement of all the crimes of humanity, of all the blood that they’ve shed; that it will make it not only possible to forgive but to justify all that has happened.

Read her whole review here. While you are at it, bookmark Dennis & Margie Haack's amazing site called Ransom Fellowship, a great analysis of pop culture from an informed Biblical worldview.

Christian the Lion's Reunion with His Caregivers

Filed Under: "Echoes of Another World"
------
If you haven't seen this video, well, its simply amazing [with the noteable exception of the cheesey Whitney Houston music that is almost unbearable]....




Admit it, you long for this to be the norm. No matter what you believe, we all know intuitively that this is the way things are supposed to be.

And this is just a glimpse of the promised future of the world.

For more on this story, click here.

Also, check out one of my previous post about "The Lion Whisperer"

Glimpses of Heaven: The Way Things are Supossed to Be

This post is a revisit...

At times, the pain and evil and sadness and brokenness of this world are so evident and so acute that it seems overwhelming. Can we take news of another tragedy? Is there strength to support those loaded down with grief? Will this insanity ever end? Things are not the way they are supposed to be. And so we cry out, "Come Lord Jesus. Come quickly! Thy Kingdom come, Thy will be done on Earth as it is in Heaven."

And for those with eyes to see, there are moments of beauty and heroism and sacrifice and intimacy and near perfection that leaves us breathless and longing for more. We see things that give us hope that sin and death do not have the last word. These are foretastes of the answer to our prayers and the longings of our hearts. These are glimpses of the coming day when Heaven and Earth will be one and the Lord Jesus will set everything to right.

I thought about these foretastes when I read this article of "The Lion Whisperer."


The Scriptures give us so many promises to sink our teeth into: The Prince of Peace will one day usher in His Kingdom of Peace in all its fullness. There will be no more harm or killing, no more tears and longing for something else. Only ever-deepening and ever-increasing joy as we live together on God's green earth exploring God's great universe and enjoying creation, each other, and our Creator just the way things are supposed to be.

Our hope is not to escape this world and live as detatched, disembodied entities. God's design is to spread His blessings wherever there is curse. As the hymnist has put it, Jesus has come to make His blessings flow far as the curse is found...

Reconiliation. Redemption. Renewal. Regeneration. Reinvigoration.

...far as the curse is found...

Restoration. Rescue. Recovery. Release. Rejuvenation.

...far as, far as the curse is found....

Replenishment. Rekindling. Repair. Replinishment. Rebirth.

And it all begins with the announcement of the Gospel of the Kingdom: the Lord of Creation took on flesh and lived the life that we should have lived, and died the death we brought upon this world, and He is now risen! Death could not hold Him!

When the Lord Jesus announced that the Kingdom was at hand at the beginning of His ministry, He was saying that "I have come to heal the world." Reconciliation and the forgiveness of sins is to be proclaimed to every creature under heaven. The announcement of Good News is to be taken to every corner of this world. And this same Good News tells us that the Return of the King will usher in the full healing of this sin-cursed creation. The wine will flow fully, the healing of the nations will occur, and the increase of His reign and our joy will know no end.



Heaven and Earth will be one.
And that is the way things are supposed to be.

Addendum: Heather--ever the animal & especially the feline lover--says that she wants a white tiger in the New Heavens & Earth. "They're just big kitties," she insists. "And I want one to bury my face in its fur."