I caught a glimpse of a vision today. I was in a seminary standing before a 19th century chapel in the middle of a gardened, gated enclave. Standing proud and strong, the chapel, as the enclave, was built in the height of 19th century optimism--rampant enthusiasm about the progress of the church and the new country. The chapel, and the gated community, portrayed a strong front to the broken, dangerous world outside of it.
And, as I watched, nearly two centuries later, the chapel began to crumble. The enclave was in disrepair. The buildings were worn out and dilapidated having rested still for many years beyond their enthusiastic inception. The grounds around the chapel was capitulating to the outside world, being sold out from underneath the seminary’s keeping. The doors to the grounds were open, but barely. And before me stood this noble chapel. For so long it had desperately clung to hope for a day when it would be repaired, renewed, recommissioned. It longed for a day when enthusiasm and hope would return. But before me, it could hold no longer. With great effort, it released its burden, and crumbled to pieces.
The seminary community was up in arms. They were upset. How dare the grounds fall to such disrepair! How could we let the integrity falter? How could we let the enthusiasm wane? But the school could not manage to keep the buildings in the most basic state. Hope was diminishing. And, at the center, this great symbol of strength, of integrity, and of otherness could hold out no longer.
Those outside laughed and jeered. They mocked the fall of the great chapel, the beautiful grounds, and the school it supported. They ridiculed it for its inability to bring about the great hope that it preached.
All of the expectations. All of the optimism. All of the earthly desire for a community that embodied progress, political change, healing, reason, justice, mercy, and proclamation fell down with it. That desperate, last grasp for a political kingdom disappeared with its destruction. All of that history, simply dust. The enthusiasm was for none.
And those outside came quickly to auction. They violently tore up the land upon which the chapel stood. They desecrated the space to build their own little kingdoms, full with big screen televisions, and plenty of square feet. Angrily they consumed to fill an exacerbated appetite.
And it was, for a while.
But then the earth rumbles, and the earth splits. And everything that stands on the land is torn down and falls into the river. And out from the space emerges people, shining white, the sheer glare made the old chapel pale as the moon pales to the sun. Out from the earth emerges generation upon generation who stood before the chapel and wept, and cried out. Walking in its place stood those who begged, and pleaded, who hoped, longed, hungered and thirsted. Out emerges a people who have long forgotten their visions, their agendas, and their politics. Out emerges a group that care little for the chapel in its former glory, because, filling them with such wholeness as could never be brought, filling them with such justice as could never be achieved, filling them with such integrity as could never be managed, filling them with such mercy as could never be replicated, filling them with such joy and enthusiasm as could never be mustered stood the King, shining so brightly that all hints of former glory and ambition waste away to nothing.
And all cried, “Holy, Holy, Holy! Holy is the lamb who sits upon the throne. Worthy is he, and he alone to be praised.”
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