I’ve had a vision. It occurred when I was taking a shower this morning, I don’t know by what fancy the Ancient of Days led me down this pathway. I will give you the vision and the interpretation. I am hesitant because for me this is a vision, not the type of vision we normally think of, a witch hunkered over a crystal ball spelling out doom. I believe it is a vision like the Old Testament Prophets received. Those that know me know I’m not the type of person to do this, unfortunately cyberspace doesn’t portray that. If you don’t believe me read my other posts you will find nothing of this sort. I call this a vision, because this is where my imagination took me as I was contemplating the church today.
Picture with me if you will a beautiful country side, a country side with rolling hills of green, broken by clumps of trees stretching their arms toward the heavens. You are standing in a grove of trees. Trees like the ancient sacred groves that beckoned toward people with welcoming, comforting arms. In the center of the sacred grove is a massive tree, the size of a modern sequoia. You look at the leaves but can’t identify it as any tree that you know. The breeze plays happily through its branches, and then dances upon your cheek, kissing it with sweet warmth.
A sound breaks your rapture, a howl in the distance that is coming, clamoring toward you. You turn around and look. Through the bushes stumbles a massive bear, worn beaten bleeding profusely upon the dark rich soil. The bear is being attacked again and again by a pack of wild dogs. They go at the animal relentlessly and it tries vainly to defend itself. In the sky vultures are circling the fight, waiting, waiting for the death that will feed them. On the ground every where the bears blood spills the earth turns into barren waste. The once dark soil is gray and lifeless, all grass on it dries and crumbles. The trees near by shrink into dust and are blown away. Just before they reach the center tree that you are standing at, the fight moves off down another path away from the heart, spreading destruction every where. You look back at the tree, the only thing left alive in this sacred grove. On the branches seeds begin to form and one by one drop upon the earth.
I began to contemplate the meaning of this as I stood under the hot water. The sacred grove is Christianity; the center tree is the trinity Father, Son, and Holy Spirit. This is not about orthodoxy or doctrine I think. The bear represents Mainline Liberal Churches; the pack of Dogs is conservative Evangelicalism. They are ripping one another apart as the vultures, the secular powers of today look on (I’m not talking political powers). Everywhere the blood of the bear touches is what is known as Emergent Christianity, a Christianity that claims no past and doesn’t have a promising future. After the destruction the tree brings forth fruit, what kind I can’t tell or even what it will be. For me this is a vision of hope. Hope because God has not stopped working, and will continue to plant and grow even after the death of Christianity as we know it.
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