The Magic Flute

                     

Last night I attended a live performance of the most popular of Mozart’s operas: The Magic Flute. It is a tale of a princess’s love won by willingly facing death for her. It portrays this risk as the cost of good prevailing over evil.

Most classical composers wrote on biblical themes, extolling the worship of God and His love and salvation for humankind. I believe Mozart never did. Yet this story expresses human longing for an end to evil, exploring the cost of redemption and final union.

This opera, like many classical fantasy tales, is theological. It points to an end of evil and a final state of security. The “once upon a time” points to the present for us. “Happily ever after,” points to a future bliss, the hope of every breast in this sin-ravaged world.

All these stories present one overall lesson. Most of the stories kill, destroy, or banish the source of evil—the big bad wolf, the wicked witch, and so on. If the wolf hadn’t been killed, Red Riding Hood would never be safe.

The Bible tells this story, but it doesn’t depend on human effort or goodness which will never bring about the end of evil. Hope can only be realized when an ultimate power outside ourselves intervenes to defeat evil.

The Christian faith alone places our future on God’s hands, not our efforts or actions. God Himself, in Jesus the Messiah, faced death, and conquered death, to assure our future. Such is the cost for our secure and permanent future.

Coming Home

Today is Sunday. Tomorrow will be Sunday. One Sunday west of the International Date Line, and another east of it. We travel home from New Zealand to Canada today and tomorrow arriving home about the same time as we left.

Takes about 24 hours door to door, aboard three flights. The longest, 14 hours non-stop south to north across the Pacific Ocean—mostly at night so a chance to sleep. Back into routine on tomorrow’s tomorrow.

All this to say, I have little time to share today (tomorrow), except to thank God for a fabulous time with family in New Zealand, and as we look to the coming year, so many memories-in-waiting. God is good—all the time. 

Beyond Life: To Be or Not to Be

A man, taking a survey, was asking passers-by what they considered humanity’s main problems. One man, rushing by, said,” I don’t know and I don’t care.” “Dead right,” shouted the questioner after him: “ignorance and apathy.”

One thing boggles my mind: the crazy western idea this life is all there is. For huge numbers of earth’s inhabitants, life is a liturgy of pain, anger and misery. Is this all there is for them? Even for westerners, it’s a time of emptiness and lack of real fulfilment. Is this all there is for us? Cultivated non-belief, or an apathetic lifestyle, leaves few considering eternity.

Where did that idea come from and what sustains it? To start, it’s convenient. No life beyond this, means no accountability. That explains the reckless hedonism engulfing western society. If this is all there is, do whatever generates my happiness—a philosophy designed to destroy social cohesiveness.

Then, there is the fear of death fostered by the unknown beyond it. What better protection from fear than to discard the unknown, convince yourself it doesn’t exist. Let’s eat drink and be merry, for tomorrow we die.

The vague notion there is no evidence of life beyond death supports this fond idea. But we cannot prove life doesn’t continue beyond death; only uncertainty exists. Simple common sense would suggest preparing for death. Life is a vapour; eternity is for ever.

Unfortunately, Christianity doesn’t showcase so well against other options. It appears an offence or foolishness; birthed in blood and based on an unlikely resurrection. Like most spiritual things, it is upside down to most human thinking, it cannot be assessed from the outside.

Anselm said: “I believe that I may understand.” We understand far more about water by jumping in than any description could give. It is only commitment to our need of God’s grace and forgiveness that gives sense to faith in Christ and assurance of the future.

Shall we ignore this life, or immerse ourselves in it with gladness and gratitude?

Life!

Today, new life emerged, that is, life that didn’t exist, now exists. This runs counter to the theory of the indestructibility of matter—or better, that no new matter can come to exist. New life is not simply the reorganization of elements of matter, but completely extra, new, additional—something on earth that hasn’t existed until now.

That new life may only be a lamb; only, in the sense that millions of lambs and other creatures have received new life throughout history. Yet that one birth is a symbol of the miracle of new life that occurs in nature every spring and in creatures every day.

Whether new life will ever arise in a test tube remains to be seen, but the only evidence we have to date is that life proceeds from life. That can only mean life on earth proceeded from Life beyond it. Even the unlikely theory that aliens brought life here, begs the question of where that life came from!

It seems to me, life has an innate desire to unite with its source, and the human soul is astray and lost seeking for its destiny elsewhere. In fact, those who consider independence from that Life their goal will eventually lose the life they have—both in meaning and in fact.

Winter Getaway?

This first blog of 2012 comes from New Zealand, as we visit our daughter and husband in their country home. It’s a promise of a summer getaway from the Canadian winter. That’s the general idea; not sure if that’s what we’re going to experience!

For our first few days here, temperature was about 18 degrees, while Lethbridge was a balmy 15. Can Canada’s winter be so close to a New Zealand summer? This weekend, about five inches of rain fell with warnings of the adjacent river flooding. Happily it hasn’t.

It is all part of a topsy-turvy world climate, becoming more extreme by the year. I commend our godless society for valiantly trying to shoulder blame for global warming. Those of a less secular orientation would blame God or His impotent usurper, Mother Nature.

Our natural approach is to blame God for difficulty and disaster, but claim merit for success or good fortune. So God gets blamed for much he has nothing to do with, and we take credit for events He has everything to do with!

In fact, we are often responsible for the adversity that afflicts us. Cut adrift from God, we sacrifice the beginning of wisdom, and substitute our distorted thinking. No wonder our lives and the world at large are in such a mess!

Failure to recognize and thank Him begins the retreat from Him. But gratitude for the abundance of life He provides draws us to Him. He is the obvious person with resources to reverse our misfortunes, or support us through them.

So I leave three things with you for 2012.

Seek God’s wisdom for decisions and the results. His foolishness is better than our wisdom.

Accept God as the author of life. He fills existence with meaning and purpose.

Identify Him as our resource during adversity. He gives seemingly pointless events significance.