I
spent a night at the beach a few weeks ago and lay out on a rooftop
deck watching the stars breathe out and in. They twinkle with a sort
of a heartbeat, a pulse. I tried to spot constellations, but stars
are dizzying. As I focused on one star at a time, I wondered if they
moved or if I just imagined such dancing. Shivering a little under my
blanket, I felt lonely in the quietness, vastness, and other-ness of
the sky. I wonder how many stars there are that we just cannot see.
“The heavens declare the glory of God, and the sky above proclaims
His handiwork” (Psalm 19:1). His hand is over the still and steady
sparkle of the stars.
He
has created so much good, like wild beach heather, whispering dune
grass, warm cappuccino waves, swirled blue skies, and sun that “comes
out like a bridegroom leaving his chamber, and, like a strong man,
runs its course with joy” (Psalm 19:5). But waves crash
unpredictably, and I can't see the end of the sea. Its “waters roar
and foam” and “the mountains tremble at its swelling” (Psalm
46:3). I've been thinking a lot lately of how the natural world fits
into our continual seeing of God. Nature is a precious tool, and God
uses it throughout Scripture to point us to Himself. At the same
time, there is so much that general revelation can't say. Even being
out in nature, we can feel excluded, and general revelation makes no
promises and gives no assurances. Creation is big and beautiful, but
it does not welcome us into the dance (Lewis 40).
We
can't know that God is on our side from bare creation. In A
Pilgrim at Tinker Creek, Annie
Dillard poignantly
paints the unpredictability of nature and our separation from its
Creator. Throughout the whole book, she tries to make sense of the
death and seemingly senseless pain in the natural world, even in
relation to small things, like insects, and she
tries to reconcile this pain
with the
life and seemingly senseless beauty found in these same things. She
questions
the reader and puts
God in the dock, wondering if He is duping us. “Or is beauty itself
an intricately fashioned lure, the cruelest hoax of all? […] Could
it be that if I climbed the dome of heaven and scrabbled and clutched
at the beautiful cloth till I loaded my fists with a wrinkle to pull,
that the mask would rip away to reveal a toothless old ugly, eyes
glazed with delight?” (255).
She watches Tinker Creek, “waters of beauty and mystery,” which
are also “waters of separation: they purify, acrid and laving, and
they cut me off” (256). She
writes of the Biblical waters of separation, the cleansing rites of
the priests, purifying the people so that they might draw near to
God. “This special water purifies. A man – any man – dips a
sprig of hyssop into the vessel and sprinkles – merely sprinkles! -
the water upon the unclean, 'upon him that touched a bone, or one
slain, or one dead.' So. But I never signed up for this role. The
bone touched me” (256). Here Dillard reveals what all men know. We
cannot draw near to God on our own; we must be purified. At the same
time, she questions God for the brokenness and accursedness of this
world, because she refuses to admit her sin. Creation is cursed and
its Creator is against us because we have sinned. Just so, we have
all touched the bone.
In
the face of a Creator God
who is outside of us, who is glorious and just, Dillard must lie to
herself for comfort. (“If I am a maple key falling, at least I can
twirl” (257).) She is
absolutely right that the “universe was not made in jest but in
solemn incomprehensible earnest,” yet there is no assurance
for us in creation or in our sinful selves that this earnestly
beautiful God is for us (259). “Shadow
Creek” cannot comfort sinners (260).
More
than shadows, we have Jesus Christ and
the Word of God. His
incarnation, death, and resurrection speak of nearness to our
Creator, peace for His enemies. General revelation can show us a
glorious God exists, but it cannot bring us near to Him; such
knowledge only condemns us. Though
creation can speak of a glorious Creator, it alone excludes sinners
from Him, because He is far more glorious and perfect than we
are. So I
am so glad that He has given us His gospel, a clear message of
the cleansing blood of Christ
that speaks a better word than
the blood of Abel (Hebrews
12:24). Contrary to Dillard's
waters, this blood of sprinkling does not separate us from God, but
through it Christ secures our “eternal redemption.
For if the blood of goats and
bulls, and the sprinkling of defiled persons with the ashes of a
heifer, sanctify for the purification of the flesh, how much more
will the blood of Christ, who through the eternal Spirit offered
Himself without blemish to God, purify our conscience from dead works
to serve the living God” (Hebrews 9:12-14). “Therefore,
brothers, since we have confidence to enter the holy places by the
blood of Jesus, by the new and living way that He opened for us
through the curtain, that is, through His flesh, and since we have a
great high priest over the house of God, let us draw near with a true
heart in full assurance of faith, with our hearts sprinkled clean
from an evil conscience and our bodies washed with pure water”
(10:19-22).
Following
in the footsteps of Dillard, Ann Voskamp,
author of One Thousand Gifts,
writes of many spiritual
experiences she received through nature and
the world around her, like
traveling to Paris to “make
love to God” (Voskamp
201).* From
the excerpts I have read of her book and the pieces I have read on
her blog, I've
found a lack
of Christ and clear cut gospel (particularly discussion of sin, not
imperfection or weakness or piles
of dirty dishes or overdue
library books, but downright
sin and the forgiveness of it). While
I don't mean to review
Voskamp's work, I find this type of thinking dangerous and infected with lies. God's blessings
cannot provide the comfort and joy for us that Christ, our Savior,
does. As the enemy works to blind us to the light of the glory of the
gospel of Christ (2
Corinthians 4:4), I think it
is sad that we seek communion with Him more in shadows instead of the
substance of His Word and gospel. It is not that shadows are bad, but
it is that shadows are not where we see Him best. With only shadows,
we are outcasts. It is at the cross that we find peace with Him, and
it is there that we see His glory shining
the brightest.
Living in a cursed world with
so much sin around us and dealing day by day with indwelling sin, we
need these starry sights of Him in the gospel.
Because
of Christ and His cross, I can enjoy glimpses of a Creator who is
both transcendent and immanent. The stars dizzy me, but they twinkle
like the heartbeat my loving
Father put within my chest. I
think God wants Christians
to see His lavish, almost wasteful, beauty in His creation and be
reminded not just that He is beautiful, but that He is for us. I
think He wants us to see all things in connection with the grace He
has lavished upon us as He
has revealed the truth of His gospel to us
(Ephesians 1:7-10).
“God is our refuge and
strength, a very present help in trouble. Therefore we will not fear
though the earth gives way, though the mountains be moved into the
heart of the sea” (Psalm 46:1-2). Beauty
smiles, and it is to welcome us. He has marked us and engraved
our names in the palms of His hands (Lewis
40, Isaiah 49:16).
Our greatest communion with
God is not through creation or His gifts to us but through the Word,
sacraments, and prayer as He reminds us of the gospel. We are loved
by and love God at the foot of the cross as He freely blesses
us with faith in His Son. We
see Him best on this side of heaven not in shadows, but in
seeing our sin forgiven and His arms open wide to welcome us because
of not our work, but
Christ's.
Dillard,
Annie. Three by Annie Dillard. New
York: Harper Perennial, 1991.
Lewis,
C.S. The Weight of Glory. San
Francisco:
HarperSanFrancisco,
2001.
Voskamp,
Ann. One Thousand Gifts. Grand Rapids: Zondervan, 2010. *I
accessed this quote through a detailed review by Bob DeWaay on this
site - http://www.cicministry.org/commentary/issue120.htm. I haven't
read the book personally, but from this review and others, along with
reading some of her material myself on her blog, I think my
explanation of her ideas is accurate. For a helpful review, see
http://www.fightingforthefaith.com/2014/01/mystical-estrogen.html
