Picture This Scene
Picture This Scene
In Luke 4:14–21, we are told of this incident:
Jesus returned to Galilee in the power of the Spirit, and news about him spread through the whole countryside. He was teaching in their synagogues, and everyone praised him.
He went to Nazareth, where he had been brought up, and on the Sabbath day he went into the synagogue, as was his custom. He stood up to read, and the scroll of the prophet Isaiah was handed to him. Unrolling it, he found the place where it is written: “The Spirit of the Lord is on me, because he has anointed me to proclaim good news to the poor. He has sent me to proclaim freedom for the prisoners and recovery of sight for the blind, to set the oppressed free, to proclaim the year of the Lord’s favor.”
Then he rolled up the scroll, gave it back to the attendant and sat down. The eyes of everyone in the synagogue were fastened on him. He began by saying to them, “Today this scripture is fulfilled in your hearing.” (NIV)
This is the message of freedom for those in bondage, a message that will open the eyes of our darkened spirituality to the bright light of his grace, that will convince a Church to live the love of God by taking care of the poor and taking up the cause of the oppressed, that assures us there is an end of time where eternity awaits, and that all who long for his presence will live in the fulfillment of their faith to the grand consummation of seeing the Ultimate One, face-to-face.
The Christian believes, too, in justice and liberation and in caring for the neediest among us. The Christian believes, too, that the mind will suddenly grasp the Ultimate. The Christian believes, too, in the ultimate synchronicity of all that is true and good and beautiful. The Christian believes, too, in moments of deep reflection and meditation and in God’s self-disclosure to the one who truly seeks after him. The Christian believes, too, that the harmony of the soul that is longed for is to be sought. But the Christian believes all that is foreshadowed in the now is consummated in the divine presence of God when we are called to be with him. It is not in us. It is in him that we find it all.
The songwriter captured this well:
Seated one day at the organ,
I was weary and ill at ease,
And my fingers wandered idly
Over the noisy keys;
I know not what I was playing,
Nor what I was dreaming then,
But I touched one chord of music
Like the sound of a great amen.
It flooded the crimson twilight
Like the close of an angel psalm;
It lay o’er my feeble spirit
Like the touch of infinite calm;
It quieted pain and sorrow—
Like love overcoming strife;
It seemed a harmonious echo
From our discordant life;
It linked all perplexed meanings
Into one perfect peace,
And trembled away into silence,
As if it were loath to cease.
I have sought and I seek it vainly—
That one lost chord divine—
Which came from the soul of the organ
And entered into mine.
It may be that death’s bright angel
Will speak in that chord again,
It may be that only in heav’n
I shall hear that grand Amen!7
That will be the sound of ultimate harmony and the silence of ultimate awe.