Let the trumpet sound!

Spring’s daffodils take me back to my childhood in a rainy Western  Washington valley renowned for acres and acres of golden blooms. Daffodils are glorious, but short-lived.  As Robert Frost wrote in his famed 1923 poem: spring’s first "green" is gold, and nature's "hardest hue to hold." I find it meaningful that daffodils bloom close to Easter. Their trumpet-like centers prompt me to recall the magnificent chorus from Handel’s Messiah that quotes 1 Corinthians 15:51-52:
Behold, I show you a mystery; We shall not all sleep, but shall all be changed, in a moment, in the twinkling of an eye, at the last trump: for the trumpet shall sound, and the dead shall be raised incorruptible, and we shall be changed.
In ancient times, trumpets heralded great news. They were associated with royalty and victory.  What greater occasion to herald than the reunion of Christ with Christ-followers!

Like a hand in a glove, these verses pair with another by Paul about death and eternal life:

We who are alive and remain until the coming of the Lord will by no means precede those who are asleep [dead].  For the Lord Himself will descend from heaven with a shout, with the voice of an archangel, and with the trumpet of God.  And the dead in Christ will rise first.  Then we who are alive and remain shall be caught up together with them in the clouds to meet the Lord in the air.  And thus we shall always be with the Lord. (1 Thessalonians 4:15-17)
Or, as the late author Barbara Johnson put it humorously in one of her book titles: “He’s Gonna Toot and I’m Gonna Scoot!”

As for “scoot,” this year I was reminded of my mortality as I got hit by a string of serious illnesses, including pneumonia. Recently, in my doctor’s office for help with a month-long battle with bronchitis, I asked what might be compromising my health. Aware of the mind-body connection in illness, I told him of stresses from someone's many negative E-mails and phone calls. One day, the same person showed up at our door and ranted "I hate you" repeatedly, then turned and left. Such stresses, my doctor said, no doubt took their toll.

Yes, I pray for this person. The day of the front porch “hate” rant, my adrenalin flowing from this surprise attack, I sensed Jesus saying, “This is not of Me. Remember, while I was dying on the cross, people ranted negatives at Me.”

He died... but He rose again! The miracle of His resurrection guarantees the eternal life, free of sin and sorrow, that we rightly celebrate at Easter. Let the trumpet sound!  Each day, we’re closer to Heaven’s final call. Hallelujah!

Fullness of time

The term “fullness of time” came to mind as I admired the amaryllis blooming in brilliant orange quadruplets this morning on our kitchen table. Three weeks ago, it looked like a withered turnip. After weeks of winter fog and cold, we’re enjoying the display.

It’s appropriate that these fast-growing bulbs are popular for indoor blooming during Christmas. At the time of Jesus’ birth, the world was socked in by centuries of hopelessness. The long-ago prophecies of Someone to change that seemed to diminish with each turn of the seasons. Then it came—not as people thought, in the form of a warrior-king born in a palace, but in a baby born to a teenager in desperate poverty far from home.

Here’s the phrase in scripture: “But when the fullness of the time was come, God sent forth his Son” (Galatians 4:4). Every one of scripture’s prophecies was fulfilled with Christ. By one person’s estimate, using just 48 prophecies, the mathematical probability of all of them being fulfilled in one person is 10 to the 57th power. That’s 10 with 57 zeroes after it.

As the buy-buy-buy ads spill out of your newspaper or prance across your television screen, remember that they’ve got it all wrong. Christmas is not about indulging one another, but marveling that God indulged us with the greatest gift of all, a way to be reconciled to Him forever.

And maybe that’s another reason the amaryllis bloom has a trumpet shape, as a special reminder of the eternal view: “Behold, I show you a mystery; We shall not all sleep, but we shall be changed, in a moment, in the twinkling of an eye, at the last trump: for the trumpet shall sound, and the dead shall be raised incorruptible, and we shall be changed” (1 Corinthians 15:51-52).If the birth of Jesus can overrule a probability of one in 10,000,000,000,000,000,000,000,000,000,-000,000,000,000,000,000,000,000,000,000—let’s celebrate, the Christ-coming past and the Christ-return-future!