Almost any post title with “theology” is almost guaranteed to NOT entice readers.
What’s the opposite of ‘clickbait?’
Personally, I like theology. The study of God?
Awesome.
This past week a minor health scare, the loss of dear ones and a newly-noticed line in an old favorite song culminated in some theological thoughts.
***
The 60’s are a dangerous age.
Not the 1960’s, (although it had its perils).
Being in one’s 60’s though, is tough.
On one hand we are grateful to have reached an age denied most people in the history of the world.
But it came up so fast! Our bodies are doing strange things.
Some of us fall gravely ill.
And too many of us die.
In the past 18 months I’ve lost a dear friend and a sweet cousin, both barely in their 60’s.
Facebook friends have passed into eternity even as I’ve been praying for their healing.
Almost all these were people of faith, who, the closer they got to the end of their earthly lives,
anticipated more and more their heavenly ones.
But it’s hard to imagine being eager to leave this world for the next.
I know this world.
So many people I love are here.
It is my current home.
I know this place.
One Christmas song you’ll seldom hear piped over the grocery store speakers is “Thou Who Wast Rich Beyond All Splendor.”
It continues
“…all for love’s sake becamest poor.
thrones for a manger didst surrender
sapphire-paved court for stable floor.”
Sunday at church we sang the heart-expanding, mind-blowing, breath-taking, love-infusing
“And Can it Be (That I Should Gain)”
I always cry at verse 4, when my chains fall off and my heart is free.
This week though, one line in verse 3 (that I’ve probably sung 200 times) jumped the gun, flagged me down, and demanded attention.
“He left his Father’s throne above,
So free, so infinite His grace;
Emptied Himself of all but love…”
This astonishing truth—one I’ve skimmed over in anticipation of the prison pardon in the next verse— lilts out the same theme
in that underrated Christmas song.
The Savior’s experience was
the opposite of ours. He came down to where we are so we can go up to the Home He left.
Many of us down here, with one foot too firmly in the world we know, aren’t eager to leave it
any sooner than necessary.
Be it ever so humble (hate-torn, contentious, polluted, with devils filled…)
there’s still no place like the home we know.
And there is the Son, in the Home up There. The Home He knew, loved, created, where He lived in perfect harmony with the Father and Spirit, rich beyond all splendor.
And He left it willingly.
Knowing the humility He’d endure in a hate-torn, contentious, with-devils-filled world—
He came into it.
To a place opposite of His Home
and a human race opposite of Him.
All for love’s sake.
Someday, unless Christ returns, we’ll all leave this home we know for the Home we don’t,
and it is probably natural to be apprehensive, to hold off that day by whatever means God gives us.
But the reason we can go to that new forever Home,
the one our Savior left so willingly,
is all because of
Love.
The Tuesday Prude (aka Anita Klumpers) 
Oh, very sweet. I just completed the devotional reading I still keep doing from our former church, and today’s was about being called into the light, our future true home where we all are priests, from I Peter 2. And of course I am sitting here thinking about it. Good to “ponder this” but not to dwell.
Yes! That’s it—ponder but don’t dwell. It’s outside the scope of our minds anyway
For the record, ‘Theology Thursday’ drew me in like a moth to our porch light. I’m odd that way, I suppose! 😅. What a lovely post, my friend. I’m not familiar with the song, but by day’s end I will be, if I can find it!
What a humbling thing to ponder, that Christ would leave the home He enjoyed to come here, of all places, filled with the wickedness and egos of men…all to show his great love. Unfathomable!
I can’t wait to see his digs, can you? Though I have my feet and my mind too firmly planted in this world most days, a post like this reminds me that I do love to ponder what it will be like in his world….heaven’s majesty…a newly minted earth…and best of all, a life without sin! ☺️
Well, it took all of 30 seconds to find it on YouTube…what a lovely song! I never thought I’d say this, but I miss hymns. They’re so rich in theology, unlike much of modern worship music.
Anyway, I also wanted to express my condolences. I’m not sure we ever live long enough to get used to the jarring ‘wrongness’ of death. One more reason to imagine our someday, yes? To see our friends and family again, to laugh and visit and just enjoy their presence….what an amazing hope we have. Blessings to you, Anita! ❤️
Thank you for the condolences. That is it—death is jarring. It IS an enemy! But praise God it is a conquered one. Glad you found the hymn. We stick generally with the Trinity Hymnal at my church but often add contemporary ones that are full of meaning and beauty (including several Keith and Kristen Getty songs)
Yes to all of that! I love the “newly minted earth.”
He went before us, and felt the human experience. He is faithful.
It really is unfathomable.
Thank you, Anita. This was way more than theology you shared. You went beyond mere facts and doctrine straight to the imagination and places of the heart. We can’t fathom what it was like for Jesus to leave behind His perfect home to trek into this wicked, crumbling world. A place dark and dismal, touched by sin in every possible way. That would be reason enough for Him to want to stay Home in heaven.
But He chose to save us, even though we will never be able to fully grasp everything He had to endure for us. The closest thing we have to understanding that is how we love our children. They don’t know the half of what we have done for them, or how many times we’ve bit our tongues in response to them, or how much our knees wear out praying for them, or what we’ve sacrificed for them over the years. Until they become parents themselves, they’ll never get it.
But none of us–parents or not, no matter our age–will ever wrap our heads around God’s love for us, and the nitty gritty details of everything involved with His love in action.
Oh Laura, thank you for this. It is beautiful and poignant and so true.