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Hello...So Long....

 


"Every step an arrival." 

This is a phrase that goes back to Eugene Peterson. The idea is to consider each step we take in life as an arrival into something new. There is always more...more of the great land of God's goodness to walk into, more of Christlikeness to grow into us. 

This also means that each next step taken means leaving behind the previous arrival. While each arrival is a precious step that brings us further up and into the great story that never ends, it becomes transitory.

This gives me language to consider each day as genuinely new. It's not just that each day is new with possibility for us to do something with it. It's that each day is a new arrival to a place where the Lord "through whom and for whom" all things were created has set a table before us. Even in the presence of our enemies. Each new day is an arrival to where the Spirit hovers, preparing to make something new. I think of it like arriving to the top of Mt. Washington and taking in the experience and rejoicing that you're here. What new act of creation goodness will unfold today? 

If I were better at it, I'd live with this vision for not only each day, but each moment. Maybe I'd be more present to what each arrival has for me to see and experience, and less inclined to be impatient, irritable, or ungrateful. Each moment is not getting me somewhere on my agenda list; it just is for me, for us, to catch a new glimpse of the vastness of God's mercy and respond.

Maybe, too, this might change how we look back at some moments as lost, dead-ends, poor decisions, or wasted time. Perhaps those experiences all were their own steps of "arrival" if we have eyes to see it that way. After all, who's writing the story anyway? Is not God always in the business of making all things new?

The song "So Long, Moses," tells the story of God's people in a way that seems to resonate with this.

So long, Moses...hello promised land...
Hello Joshua....no crown
Hello Saul...goodbye Saul...
Hail King David...
Hello prophets...the kingdom is broken now...how long, O Lord?

Each of these moments was a new arrival in the story. Each was an arrival further into the life of God with new revelations from or about God. Each arrival contributed to the formation of God's people and their complex relationship with God and the world.

Some of these moments seem to be steps backward, not forward. They had an element of "so long, please let's get past this to something better..." But maybe even though they narrate disobedience and frustration, they were still times of arrival because they illuminate something of another "arrival." 

Moses was a deliverer and lawgiver, pointing to what would be fully seen in Christ the ultimate deliverer, who was God's word, the Torah in flesh. Joshua was the one who led the people into their new land, prefiguring Christ who would lead humanity into new creation. Saul and David both kings, but flawed. Their arrivals birthing a hope for a king who would rightly lead as God's Son. The arrival of a kingdom that would be plagued by brokenness and unfaithfulness opens to the yearning for a kingdom whose peace and justice would never end. 

Soon we will be arriving in Nashville together. We've long ago said, "so long" to last year's time together. This year will be a new arrival into something familiar, something we've done before. Yet it will be new. What new and wonderful things will God have prepared for us in this arrival? It will for sure be an arrival that fills us with joy and gladness. Our first encounters at the AirBnB will be filled with "hello friend!" and long hugs and smiles. It will be warming to our hearts and pleasant for our bodies and souls. 

But we will leave it for another arrival. "So long, BTLOG..."

Yet, transitory as it will be, I eagerly look forward to this year's arrival. It will hold a valuable place by allowing us to summit for a few days and experience something that will tap into our deepest longings for a fellowship of love and joy that drowns any fear, anxiety, uncertainty, or darkness. It will be a reminder of a future arrival we all look forward to. This arrival step will be a glimpse enough to draw us "further up and further in," as C.S. Lewis says.

As we contemplate Christ's arrival this Advent, let us prepare our hearts for an experience of arrival in a few days, a time of arrival that will give us a glimpse of the beauty, love, and friendship of the Father, Son, and Spirit that Christ is always drawing us into.

So long, Moses. Hello promised land. 


 



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