Before The Dying

"A King on a donkey would become the glory of the Lord revealed and the power of God such as men had never truly witnessed, and a recreation of the body which no death could ever overcome."

WHEN DANIEL BOONE crossed into Kentucky, He entered Paradise. This uncharted mountainous terrain teemed with wildlife and beauty such as had never been seen by the eyes of man. Sometime, years ago, I remember reading an account of it, uncertain where now. But records remain of his adventures there, though many circulate around his interactions with Native Americans. Kentucky was considered “west” compared to then civilized America, an odd idea, since so much of this landscape lies west of that, but the point is, unseen by any other man, what Boone experienced was a bounty no longer in existence.

A number of years ago, I joined a group of nature recording artists, mostly to listen to their bird soundscapes. What I learned from them about the earth was the decay of its natural soundscape. There were places where you could no longer hear certain species interacting without there being some manmade sound. We think little of this today, but for these dedicated individuals, it mattered that no car or plane or other modern conveyance intruded into how the sounds ought to be. They were dedicated to their craft, oddly enough, loaded down with electronic equipment, itself out-of-place where they stood to record. I remember one man’s outrage over a movie soundtrack’s usage of certain bird calls in a scene where those birds would not have lived. He was so disgusted he would not watch the film, though they paid him for the bird calls they’d misused.

God created the heavens and the earth, filling the sky with stars such as had never been seen before and adorning the land with creatures whose lives were tailor-made for certain ecosystems. From deserts to tropical forests to wide savannahs and the deepest oceans, He placed life which mingled in a manner such as no other being could design it. He funded the earth, digging deep within her soil to place gemstones, formed by the pressure of time, and veins of minerals that would be discovered one day by someone who was or wasn’t searching for it. The infinity of it is mindblowing, and the wisdom needed. The human body alone, made to exist among such still defies the greatest scientists at times. For all we’ve learned about it, for all we can do to correct it, there is that which can only be fixed by God.

The earth is dying. Gone is Boone’s Kentucky. Gone is Eden. Gone are species God made, their lives forever ended by man’s determined greed. Gone are entire peoples, their cultures and languages, known now only to the Spirit of God and man’s inept speculations. Man created Darwin, who decided we’d all magically developed from apes. Man created Pharaoh, who decided he was god made by gods who battled each other for territory and power. Darwin died, as did Pharaoh and both woke up to what? One minute, they’re sure of how things on this world revolved, the next they’ve discovered there is a God.

The God of the Hebrews was the only God who crossed borders. In man’s thinking, the gods of Egypt stayed in Egypt. (This would be because they aren’t gods at all.) When Jonah was tossed overboard, it was for admitting he ran from the Hebrew God and his shipmates wanted nothing to do with him then. They’d die for sure if he stayed around. Rahab the harlot said the people of Jericho feared the Hebrew God. His reputation for what happened at the Red Sea was still talked about amongst them. Jericho was nowhere near in location and the crossing of the sea, some 40 years earlier, yet people were still terrified of what Israel’s God could do.

Then there’s what happened to Dagon. The Philistines stole the ark and put it in the temple of Dagon, only to find Dagon in pieces the next morning. Baffled, they reassembled their false god and, once again, next day, Dagon was broken. That Hebrews God was to blame, the Philistines decided. Add to this everyone for miles had problems sitting down. They kept moving the ark from town to town until finally one said, “Don’t bring it here,” so they literally tied it to a cart and sent it in the direction of the nearest Hebrew border. Once more, Israel’s God showed Himself as living, on a dying planet full of dying people.

Of all those -ites who dwelt in Canaan, the land of Promise, how many are left now? Of all those gods of forgotten cultures, which ones still rule? Of the men and women who fashioned them, which ones are living? Of those who prided themselves on what they termed miracles, but was actually witchcraft, who has done more to place value on their wisdom than an article buried somewhere in an intellectual’s book? Take the account of Daniel Boone and read it aloud and what is created from it? Fashion a golden calf and how much manna falls from heaven to feed millions of people? And where are Pharaoh’s horsemen today? Their wheels buried in the mud somewhere beneath the Red Sea, they sit silent.

What God decides to let go of His divine prerogatives and live amongst His dying creation? What God decides to die for them, because of them, in order to recreate them in His image? He had the throne, had the power on display. He had the history, was known as living and active and gracious. He had glory such as the human mind could not fathom. He’d appeared on Mt. Sinai in darkness and lightnings, and the people had begged Moses to make it stop. He had a reputation amongst believers and nonbelievers. Pharaoh didn’t believe and died in his unbelief when the God he didn’t want to listen to closed the waters over him. There’d been the hand on the wall with the Babylonian king and no one able to read it but a man stolen from Israel. There’d been prophets in number, calling out His truths with fire from heaven, miraculous births, and incredible healings. Rain that fell and rain that didn’t. He was known as God, was seen as God, had proven Himself time and time again. But the dying planet decayed around men, so He chose to become one of them.

He knew their pain. Had seen generations of it. He’d heard their cries, knew their griefs and sorrows, without ever placing one human foot on this planet. And as God, He could have rescued man some other way. One a charger, in battle array. As the Lord of Hosts, tens of thousands of angels following behind Him. Why a baby, why become an infant? Why rely on a mom and a dad to care for Him? Why degrade Himself that way? Except in Him was life, and the life was the light of men, and His light shone in darkness, and those lost in it, left to the whim of an enemy who’d deceived them for thousands of years, would only find Him by His example to them. From the herd would come the herdsman. A King on a donkey would become the glory of the Lord revealed and the power of God such as men had never truly witnessed, and a recreation of the body which no death could ever overcome.

The planet dies around us, but the God who came to rescue it has enough life in Him to save everything. Though creation groans for it, though plant life and animal life wish, innately, for the beauty to come, the salvation of it begins with the people on it. Because this God now lives as one of them. He died to rescue them and rose again to prove to them that He was forever and is always. Though death began outside of Him, death’s defeat was because of Him, and its ending will be at His insistence. From what fails around us will come, then, such abundance as only He can bring. As He gave in the beginning, before the dying, we will be because He is eternity living. Exceeding above more than we could ever ask or think.

“Oh, the magnitude of the worth and value of the wisdom and knowledge of God! How infinite is his intelligence; and his method of governing is beyond the ability of humans to reproduce!” (Romans 11:33, Remedy)

“And among the body of believers—the church—Christ is supreme: He is the model of true perfection, the only rightful leader who by love, voluntarily sacrificed himself, destroying selfishness and death in his body on the cross, and thus is the very source of life—God’s rightful heir arisen from the dead—so that he is supreme in all things.” (Colossians 1:18, Remedy)


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Suzanne D. Williams, Author
www.suzannedwilliams.com
www.feelgoodromance.com