My husband and I went on Columbus Day weekend to Dallas, visiting with my college roommate, her husband, and family, as well as my dad who happened to be visiting his girlfriend. We heard Anne Graham Lotz speak on Sunday morning--a simple message from a complex passage surrounding the vision of the prophet Ezekiel. Anne drew from the supernatural beings of Ezekiel's vision--who are a composite of mythical creatures and who seem to defy description by their occupance of time, space, color--a picture of the characteristics of God. The appearance of winged man, lion, ox, and eagle are already well established christological symbols, corresponding to the nuanced portrayals of Christ in the gospels of Matthew, Mark, Luke and John. On many a church facade the writers of the four gospels are often depicted as these figures, so close was the correlation between Ezekiel's vision, these four pictures of God, and the accounts of Christ in the gospels in the mind of church tradition. A complete rundown of the allegory can be found at the following link:
http://www.sacred-destinations.com/reference/four-evangelists.htm
Suffice it to say that Anne conveyed, with a distinct blend of Eastern Seaboard and Southern Bible Belt sensibilities, a simple message from the passage: when we are at our most disillusioned, Christ comes in royal strength and power, offering himself as our intermediary, as one who has shared in our suffering humanity, as the one who is still sovereign, soaring over all of our circumstances, and toward whose purposes all of life still tends. What struck me in her exegetical approach was that, even though she was standing on rock solid ground when it came to church interpretive tradition of the text, she did not mention it once. I appreciated the connection between her interpretation and art that I had seen in Europe, along with the minutia imparted to me in my college Christian theology class, silently. The effect was that I was quickened, riveted--such aesthetic connections bring me satisfaction and pleasure in a way that I can actually feel physically, as if I had just had the first bite of a pie just taken from my own oven, or been given a kite to fly. The excitement these connections generate for me can only be properly called part of my worship experience.
Whether Anne also relished that connection is unclear to me; she can't have been totally unaware of it, with her education and exposure to the world. Though her father Billy always deferred to her as the better preacher of the two, I saw his influence in her decision not to make a show of erudition or "dropping names," so to speak, by making this longstanding connection in church tradition between the four heavenly creatures. Perhaps it is the American evangelical way to avoid "vain knowledge that puffeth up," or the need to distance oneself from all liturgical impulses within the church. I would have liked to hear her mention it, since the ability to recognize such patterns in old buildings, stained glass, illuminated manuscripts, poetry and prose, remind me that American evangelicals are not the first to try to bring the tenets of the faith and the person of Christ to the people--to make them come alive in allegory and color, making known the hidden knowledge of God. The effect her omission of this detail seemed to have on her message, however, was to add freshness and relevance that drew the whole hour toward a single insight: the presence of Christ on his throne. Anne's catchphrase and book title "Just Give Me Jesus" rang appropriately with the preeminence of the divine relationship and presence, even if I would have preferred to revel in the mystery of the otherworldy messengers, their movement, the rushing of wings, and the expanse "like ice" above their heads. I could get bogged down alternately in the symbolism of each description, or in creating a pictorial image of each. As I sit here I think I subconsciously must want to write a paper connecting this vision to Christ in each of the gospels, characteristic by characteristic. But what Anne did stylistically was to draw attention to her real theme: the consolation of a God who is enthroned, yet comes to speak into our despondency:
Then there came a voice from above the expanse over their heads as they stood with lowered wings. Above the expanse over their heads was what looked like a throne of sapphire,and high above on the throne was a figure like that of a man. I saw that from what appeared to be his waist up he looked like glowing metal, as if full of fire, and that from there down he looked like fire; and brilliant light surrounded him. Like the appearance of a rainbow in the clouds on a rainy day, so was the radiance around him. This was the appearance of the likeness of the glory of the LORD. When I saw it, I fell facedown, and I heard the voice of one speaking.
It is this speaking that most captivates me about the passage now, though it took me too long to pay attention to it. Wading through the images to get to the words:
He said to me, "Son of man, stand up on your feet and I will speak to you." As he spoke, the Spirit came into me and raised me to my feet, and I heard him speaking to me.
And later in the passage:
"The people to whom I am sending you are obstinate and stubborn. Say to them, 'This is what the Sovereign LORD says.' And whether they listen or fail to listen—for they are a rebellious house—they will know that a prophet has been among them. And you, son of man, do not be afraid of them or their words. Do not be afraid, though briers and thorns are all around you and you live among scorpions... You must speak my words to them, whether they listen or fail to listen, for they are rebellious. But you, son of man, listen to what I say to you. Do not rebel like that rebellious house; open your mouth and eat what I give you."
As intimidating as it is to have God put words in your mouth that must be spoken to others, regardless of their receptivity, I love especially that God uses disillusionment here as a catalyst for his cause. Into the vacuous space of disappointment and even resentment, God can speak his solution, his Being into the not-being of our unrealized hopes. I find this so comforting, because in my nascent professional life of nearly three years, I have never been so easily frustrated, embittered, or disillusioned. These moments for me rarely possess that epic quality of unrest portrayed by the protagonists in the movies, where sorrow comes only for a few scenes, and joy comes bursting through--just in time for the overcoming chords of a triumphant musical score--to resolve all the pain and trials before the credits roll. My frustrations are of a more persistent and thereby corrosive nature: the longer I spend with them, the less I feel like an overcomer, and quotidian pressures often keep me from rising above my own disillusionment in a way that feels resolved or accomplished. Nevertheless, I have found that God visits and speaks, if not with flashing and sapphire, between the dishes and the dust of the morning commute. If we take what he puts into our mouths during such visits, chew and digest them, and speak them out to the intended audience, we in those moments become co-creators with God, co-intercessors, co-heirs, and co-restorers of the broken world. Hearing Anne speak reminded me of this reality, once very natural to me, but now more awkward with age and the knowledge that often, the intended audience will not receive the word that God has given you for them. That is the risk, I suppose, of joining in any divine venture this side of heaven.
The primary cause of our trek to Dallas--the U2 concert itself--was also well worth it. I felt as if I hadn't missed out on decades of listening to them, because they played some of the old stuff and some of the new. Bono, as is his wont, got preachy about fighting injustice and hunger, and Rev. Desmond Tutu addressed the audience in a video presentation...it was all meaningful. I about lost it--no, wait, I did loose it, thinking of my mom and grandma, and the throbbing sea of humanity around me--when they played Where the Streets Have No Name. I knew it wasn't quite church, or heaven on earth, that we were experiencing, but there were shadows and glimpses of it enough. It was a very good concert, in the sense that you couldn't really say that it was all a vanity. They were realizing their vocation as spiritual creatures--artists, at that--by making the most exquisite music. Bono remind me of David dancing before the ark, a comparison made by my husband's college roommate that has stuck with us.
And then, afterwards, ears throbbing, the onset of a headache coming on, I was lost in a dreamworld, like Mary, treasuring what I had seen and heard in my heart. I was reaching for my husband's hand (he was a zombie, too), and walking past some floor-level boxes when a row of middle-aged, wealthy-looking men, leaning over their box rail said something to me and started laughing and whistling. I didn't register it at first, but my husband Z later confirmed that they had, with the drunken camaraderie of nostalgic fraternity brothers, offered me $20 to see my "titties." I had not even worn a shirt with a low neckline, as I wanted to be comfortable, and I burned with anger for hours after hearing him repeat what I thought I'd heard them say. Z got mad, too, and had either of us not been so distantly preoccupied with nobler, more heavenly things, we both probably would have cussed them up and down and caused a scene. But it was like that space between a dream and waking up where you fight to stay asleep--we couldn't rouse ourselves enough to be angry or even make eye contact in the moment, and just kept walking. So, as I was rudely reminded, it was not church--not even close. But if that concert was like heaven, then they were like the fool who, having been invited after the first string of guests refused to come, came to the wedding feast in the wrong clothes, and for being so out of tune, was thrown out "where there was weeping and gnashing of teeth" (Matthew 8).
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