Calvary’s anthem – A Meditation (6)

 

 

“I have a longing for the world above where multitudes sing the great song, for my soul was never created to love the dust of earth. Though here my spiritual state is frail and poor, I shall go on singing Calvary’s anthem.” (The Valley of Vision, page 315).

 

As I grow older, I sense the eternals pressing upon me and drawing me into that world above. I feel it, smell it, touch it, taste it, breathe it into my lungs. Do not all of us who are in Christ breathe the sweet Holy Spirit as our way of life?

 

We live 5 ½ miles from the Atlantic Ocean. Sometimes I can smell the ocean. Since I am an early riser, most mornings I see the sun rise and many of those sunrises are beautiful, fleeting but beautiful. While I cannot see the ocean from our home, I know the sun is rising over its horizon, I know it is shining its rays on the beach, I know the waves are usually lapping, or at other times pounding, against the shoreline. I always “see” the coastline and the ocean when I look to the sky in the morning and consider the sunrise.

 

I can be at the ocean in a few minutes, and I can plunge into it shortly after my arrival. As long as I can remember, I have associated being in the ocean with being in the depths of God’s love, being enveloped in His Holy Presence beyond measure. One day I will enter the infinite ocean of His love never to return to the shoreline; I may come to the ocean on that day, or the ocean will come to me; some things we do not know, but in all things we can trust our dear Lord Jesus and His overwhelming love (Romans 8:31 – 39).

 

As Paul writes, we groan, longing to be clothed with our dwelling from heaven; God has prepared us for this very purpose (2 Cor. 5:1 – 5), and He has indeed given us the Spirit as a pledge and guarantee, as His Promise to us (Eph. 1:13; 2 Cor. 1:22; 5:5).

 

I suppose I visualize Revelation chapters 21 and 22 every day, and why not? I will be there sooner rather than later, that City even now is drawing me into itself, where the Lord God Almighty and the Lamb are the only Light. If they will be our Light then, ought they not be our Light now?

 

“They will see His Face, and His Name will be on their foreheads” (Rev. 22:4). This, my friends, is to live for…to see Him and to have His Nature within our hearts and minds as His daughters and sons.

 

“He who overcomes, I will make him a pillar in the temple of My God, and he will not go out from it anymore; and I will write on him the Name of My God, and the name of the City of My God, the New Jerusalem, which comes down out of heaven from My God, and My New Name” (Rev. 3:12).

 

The fleeting sunrises that I am blessed to behold are daily promises of that Great Day when the “Sun of righteousness will rise with healing in its wings; and you will go forth and skip about like calves from the stall” (Malachi 4:2). The joy that skipping calves and lambs display is uninhibited, it is natural, it is without self-consciousness or fear – it is joy within joy and joy overflowing.

 

“Then you will see and be radiant, and your heart will thrill and rejoice” (Isaiah 60:5).

 

“No longer will you have the sun for light by day, nor for brightness will be moon give you light; but you will have the LORD for an everlasting Light, and your God for your glory” (Isaiah 60:19; see also Rev. 21:22 – 23; 22:5).

 

One of the many hymns embedded in my soul since my teenage years was written by Carrie Ellis Breck, Face to Face. It is my hope, my vision, my reason for living, my reason for sharing Jesus with others – that they may know the depths of His love and the expectation of seeing Him face to face. Here is a selection from the hymn:

 

Face to face with Christ my savior,

Face to face what will it be

When with rapture I behold Him

Jesus Christ who died for me?

 

Refrain: Face to face I shall behold Him,

Far beyond the starry sky,

Face to face in all His glory,

I shall see Him by and by.

 

Face to face oh, blissful moment!

Face to face to see and know,

Face to face with my Redeemer,

Jesus Christ who loves me so.

 

Are we living in the light of His love today?

 

Are we sharing the warmth of His love with others?

 

Are we inviting others to skip with us?

Calvary’s anthem – A Meditation (5)

 

 

“I have a longing for the world above where multitudes sing the great song, for my soul was never created to love the dust of earth. Though here my spiritual state is frail and poor, I shall go on singing Calvary’s anthem.”

 

I love Hebrews 11:8 – 16, for it is not only the testimony of our fathers and mothers of faith, it is our testimony too – or at least it should be. Our spiritual ancestors were “looking for the city which has foundations, whose architect and builder is God.” They confessed that they were “strangers and exiles on the earth” making it “clear that they are seeking a country of their own…a better country, that is, a heavenly one.”

 

“Therefore, God is not ashamed to be called their God; for He has prepared a city for them.”

 

Our forebearers knew that the promise of a land was a shadow and type of a greater inheritance, a greater and lasting City and Land. Abraham was not focused on his descendants inheriting a strip of land in the Middle East, he was focused on what that land represented, becoming “heir of the world…through the righteousness of faith” (Romans 4:13). The world which he was called to inherit was a heavenly world, kingdom, and City which would encompass and envelop and renew all things, heaven would (and will) descend upon earth.

 

Hence Paul writes that the earthly city of Jerusalem is not our mother and should not be our identity and focus, but rather the heavenly Jerusalem – the mother of those who live in the faith of Abraham (Galatians 4:21 – 31). How foolish we are to identify with earthly things when Jesus has said that His kingdom is not of this world (John 18:36).

 

Paul writes that we are to “keep seeking the things above, where Christ is, seated at the right hand of God. Set your mind on the things above, not on the things that are on earth” (Col. 3:1 – 2).

 

One of the great lies in our society is that a person can be so heavenly minded that he is of no earthly good. I have never encountered such a person, I have never read of such a person. On the contrary, it is often those who are heavenly minded who lead the way in caring for others – the poor, the refugee and alien, the homeless, the prisoner, the orphan and widow, the outcast, the sick. Those who are heavenly minded are those who point us to our destiny, to God our Creator and our Father, to the Christ of the Cross. Those who are heavenly minded insist that we do not prostitute ourselves to this present evil age, to its values, to its systems, to its prison of conformity to this world.

 

Those who are heavenly minded proclaim that, in Christ, we are citizens of heaven (Phil. 3:20). Those who are heavenly minded have the courage to live against the grain of the world, the flesh, and the devil; to witness for Jesus, to give their lives for Him and others. They also have the courage to live against the grain of a professing church that, at least in the West, has sold itself to the powers of the present age.

 

Those who are heavenly minded remind us that our souls were “never created to love the dust of the earth.”

 

Those who are heavenly minded sing Calvary’s Anthem, inviting us to sing the Great Song of the Ages.

 

Shall we join them?

Calvary’s anthem – A Meditation (4)

 

 

“O Lord, for ever will thy free forgiveness live that was gained on the mount of blood; in the midst of a world of pain it is a subject of praise in every place, a song on earth, an anthem in heaven, its love and virtue knowing no end.”

 

As I read the above, I recall Paul’s words, “For one will hardly die for a righteousness man; though perhaps for the good man someone would dare even to die. But God demonstrates His own love toward us, in that while we were yet sinners, Christ died for us” (Romans 5:7 – 8).

 

Christ did not die for me because I was good, nor did He love me because I was good; He died for me when I was a sinner, but I was not just a sinner, I was an enemy of God. “For if while we were enemies we were reconciled to God through the death of His Son, much more, having been reconciled, we shall be saved by His life” (Romans 5:10).

 

The love of God is beyond words. I was a sinner, a transgressor, but I was not only breaking the commandments of God, I was also an enemy of God. I was not only an individual enemy of God, but I was also joined to the realm of darkness and rebellion, I was participating in the rebellion of Satan (Psalm 2; Eph. 2:1 – 3). We must not gloss over our condition before being reconciled to God through the death of His Son, we must not fool ourselves about ourselves – this is true about who we were, it is also true about who we now are in Jesus Christ.

 

I was participating in the great family betrayal; the sons and daughters of the Living God had joined the forces of darkness through their sin and were living under the domain of Satan. When God sent His Only Begotten Son to bring us back to Himself, we killed Him, nailing Him to the Cross; unknowingly we were sacrificing the Lamb who was our true Passover. Jesus came to declare the Name of the Father to us (Heb. 2:9 – 13), and in the deep mysteries of God, even in our rebellion, we have heard His Voice. While we were enemies, we were reconciled to God – is this not beyond words?

 

We were in such a condition that there was nothing we could do to help ourselves, “For while we were still helpless, at the right time, Christ died for the ungodly” (Rom. 5:6).

 

One translation has it, “when we were without strength.” I love that image, we could not lift a finger to help ourselves, we had no energy to save ourselves, we were overwhelmed by sin and evil and our wills were held captive by darkness until that Day when “He rescued us from the domain of darkness and transferred us to the kingdom of His beloved Son, in whom we have redemption, the forgiveness of sins” (Colossians 1:13).

 

When we realize, in some measure for we can never (I think) see the full measure, our lost condition without Christ, when we see that we were His enemies, when we have a sense of our betrayal of God our Father, then we can begin to see the incredible love of God in Christ for us, for you and for me and for those around us. Then perhaps we can begin to sense the chasm that Christ crossed to love us, the depths of darkness into which He plunged to save us, His piercing cry on the Cross, “My God, My God, why have You forsaken Me?”

 

O what a free forgiveness! We cannot merit it. We cannot deserve it. We cannot add to it. We cannot repay it. We can, by God’s grace, be good stewards of it; we can share it, we can live in it as God’s sons and daughters, we can sing Calvary’s Anthem, we can share this Good News with others.

 

On a hill far away stood an old rugged cross,

the emblem of suffering and shame;

and I love that old cross where the dearest and best

for a world of lost sinners was slain.

 

So I’ll cherish the old rugged cross,

till my trophies at last I lay down;

I will cling to the old rugged cross,

and exchange it some day for a crown.

 

O that old rugged cross, so despised by the world,

has a wondrous attraction for me;

for the dear Lamb of God left his glory above

to bear it to dark Calvary. [Refrain]

 

In that old rugged cross, stained with blood so divine,

a wondrous beauty I see,

for ’twas on that old cross Jesus suffered and died,

to pardon and sanctify me. [Refrain]

 

To that old rugged cross I will ever be true,

its shame and reproach gladly bear;

then he’ll call me some day to my home far away,

where his glory forever I’ll share. [Refrain] (George Bennard)