A final flow of grace on the Irish green Dublin Airport Bus get’s us through to the departure gate with a couple of hours to spare …..and an opportunity to write a belated blog before we fly back to our ‘other’ home. It’s not that there has been a lack of blog worthy material, simply of time and opportunity as Father has filled our days here with good people and godly appointments!
“Next Stop; The Green”
So spoke the pre-recorded Englishman as I rode the Belfast City Bus into the centre a few days ago.
A lot has changed in Belfast since I used to ride the bus once a month with my two brothers on a Saturday morning and get a thrupenny fare to “The Arches” where I was under strict instructions from my mother to ask the barber for, “Plenty off – and no hair oil.” Back then the buses had no stop announcements, no Smartcards, no doors!
Now across the road from where the barber’s shop used to exist, stands “The Searcher” sculpture depicting Professor Diggory and the magic Wardrobe from C.S. Lewis world of Narnia that is now a part of Belfast’s highlighting it’s historical claims to fame, from Georgie Best to C. S. and from ‘Van the Man’ to the Titanic….. of whatever ilk, all are now great for the tourist trade. If anyone had told me as a boy there would one day be a line of cruise ships docking in Belfast, I would have laughed!
En route to this TripAdvisor #1 tourist destination we have come via New York City and Glasgow, visiting two boisterous grandsons and one baccalaureate son. At both places Father has had another stop at “The Green” scheduled for us. Glasgow in the Gaelic is “The Green Place” and while in Brooklyn New York I found myself walking around Green Wood cemetery.
Green is the color of life – Resurrection life!
I wonder how may people are aware that this is the “Next Stop” – when EVERYTHING changes!!!
As believers we can focus on many good things, but I have found amazingly few focused on what we are told will be the next major turning point in redemptive history as set forth in the biblical account.
It took a headline in our local Minneapolis Star Tribune newspaper a few years ago on the death of Pope John Paul II to bring this powerfully home to me: The front page headline was a quotation from one of his poems:
“My Eyes are Fixed on the Resurrection”
“Set your hope fully”, Peter says, not on the church unity or world evangelization or social justice or revival, but, “Set your hope fully….on the grace that is to be given when Jesus Christ is revealed.”
The full manifestation of Christ that will occur concurrently with the resurrection, ( 2 Thess. 5:) should have our full attention. This was the preoccupation of the New Testament writers and believers.
When St. Mungo prayed 1500 years ago that Glasgow would “flourish through the preaching of the word and the praising of his name,” I believe he was knowingly or unknowingly pointing to this event which will lead to not only Glasgow but the whole world ‘flourishing” as death gives way to life and darkness to light through the word and praise of God being manifested through an incarnate company of “shining ones” coming forth at the appointed time.
In Daniel 12 it speaks of a time when “…many will go here and there to increase knowledge.”
A recent headline, “Knowledge Doubling Every 12 Months, Soon to be Every 12 Hours” together with the unprecedented world travel, alerts us to the fulfillment of this prophecy in our day.
The passage also speaks of, “Those who impart wisdom will shine like the brightness of the heavens and those who lead many to righteousness like the stars for ever and ever. “
We visited one of those ‘shining ones’ a few days ago. Physically trapped in a wheelchair we found her circled by others both young and old drawn by her ‘glow’. She told us she thought she’d been called home a few weeks before, but regained her physical senses and earthly presence. A bit frustrated at her ongoing bodily limitations Father told her a little sternly “Just sit and shine!” The next day she received two handwritten letters telling her how her presence (“No! – The Lord’s presence!” she would insist) had transformed these two lives.
The photos?
Top; Round the corner from where we celebrated Hilary’s 70th in Donegal. Bottom; Another ‘shining one’