[1] Then the angel showed me the river of the water of life, as clear as crystal, flowing from the throne of God and of the Lamb [2] down the middle of the great street of the city. On each side of the river stood the tree of life, bearing twelve crops of fruit, yielding its fruit every month. And the leaves of the tree are for the healing of the nations. [3] No longer will there be any curse. The throne of God and of the Lamb will be in the city, and his servants will serve him. [4] They will see his face, and his name will be on their foreheads. [5] There will be no more night. They will not need the light of a lamp or the light of the sun, for the Lord God will give them light. And they will reign for ever and ever. (Revelation 22 NIV)

Blessed are those who thirst at the fountains of Babylon but do not drink, for they will sup of the water giving eternal life. Blessed are those who endure faithfully against the tide swelling up to engulf the earth within a flood of evil, for they will journey the sea of Love. Blessed are those who remain righteous when the whole world reaches to them with the naked embrace of unholy passions, for they will be wrapped in the arms of their Lord.

Blessed is the Fellowship of the Cross, for it shall shine for all eternity as Babylon is lost forever. O man, I have heard the spirit of Hosea crying through the dusts of time. "Hear the word of THE LORD," he proclaims, "for THE LORD has a controversy with the inhabitants of the land." He speaks, but who will hear his word? "There is no faithfulness or kindness, and no knowledge of God in the land; there is swearing, killing, stealing, and committing adultery; they break all bounds and murder follows murder.",." footnote

I hear the spirit of Hosea, and there is anguish in his song. Again he complains that the people are lifting their lutes to Ba'al, and he condemns the worldly priests for their orchestration of the peoples' unholy deeds. "Hear the word of THE LORD," he cries to the ministers of Babylon, "my people are destroyed for lack of knowledge; because you have rejected knowledge, I reject you from being a priest to me." footnote

The lamentation of Hosea joins the sorrow of the martyred Saints and rises like incense to the altar of heaven. The host of heaven mourn as priest and people follow after Ba'al. "And it shall be to the people and the priest who are alike," proclaims the prophet this verdict of God, "I will punish them for their ways and require them for their deeds." footnote But blessed is the man who continues in righteousness; he has the knowledge of God, for it is Christ Himself who dwells in his heart and gives secret communion to the soul. Christ knows His sheep, and He will separate them from the goats. The double-edged sword is drawn over history to bring in the harvest of all mankind:

[10] Tell the righteous it will be well with them, for they will enjoy the fruit of their deeds. 11 Woe to the wicked! Disaster is upon them! They will be paid back for what their hands have done. (Isaiah 3 NIV)

Blessed are the children of innocence because they are washed clean in the blood of the Lamb, for they will be delivered as Babylon dies. I am a watchman, and I have foreseen the day when all manner of survival will seem appropriate to the heart of Babylon. Even now the world pays tribute to Ba'al who mandates that the weak should be sacrificed for the strong. Each man does what is right in his own eyes, and neighbor devours neighbor in the savage climb to the top. Babylon is a fortress of rebels, and like Ninevah it must repent, or at the last trumpet's sound it shall fall like Jericho.

I have heard the song of Jonah in the deep and quiet heart of hearts: I am a poet formed from the breath of dawn, and a reed played at the hour of twilight as the Spirit moves through me. I hear the notes and I hear the song, and I have listened to the voice of Jonah as it signaled its alarm to Ninevah. It is a different note than that which finds voice through my agency, but its melodic minor reminds me of autumn... of cold winds gusting... of winnowing and harvest.

O Babylon! Look to Ninevah! I have come to you as reluctantly as Jonah went to that ancient city. The word from my mouth has judged you as harshly as the word that this former prophet spoke. We have not exaggerated the guilt of the host that hears the word that we proclaim. And I, unlike Jonah, would seek a thousand deaths if only you would come alive! I would not care that my present note proved a false cord in the events to come. I would rejoice at your quickening!

No one desires that the holocaust be avoided more than this servant. My eyes are even now in tears for the suffering that will come to the earth at the season of winnowing and harvest. God does not wish that any should suffer, but He wills that all men exercise their agency within existence. God sent His only Son so that everyone might be saved, but apart from faith, no man shall please God or be saved. God has not created the sons of men to be will-less, but has given them the power to reject His gift, and to bend their force of will into directions that oppose His purpose for humanity.

We were created in the image and likeness of God. We are caretakers who consciously mold reality. However, since the Fall we are also creatures who no longer share the perfection of divine love. God is Love, and man is a rebel. God brings harmony and order; the rebel brings discord and chaos. God's justice cannot allow Babylon to stand, and His mercy will not permit that His returning prodigals should perish. The day of winnowing and harvest is soon coming; the rebel will be burned, and the Saint will be recast under the Potter's hands into the perfect image and likeness of God.

The Saint will not perish by crossing the threshold of death. The Father's house has many rooms, and Christ Jesus has prepared one for the Homecoming of His returning prodigals. The door of death will seemingly close upon us all, but it will open to the Saint and display the unspoiled Garden. The unity of will, consciousness and body will be perfected within each Saint by the addition of undiluted love. The refined family of Adam will live as one united family forever and ever: "Instead, they were longing for a better country-- a heavenly one. Therefore God is not ashamed to be called their God, for he has prepared a city for them." (Hebrews 11:16 NIV.)

Do you suppose, O man, that Babylon is the only city within the universe of existence? Is any talk of a future "city of glory" idle utopianism? Does the suggestion of a future existence smack of a "pie in the sky" theology? Does Christianity merely serve as an opiate by holding out a fabled "city of gold" to relieve those who are oppressed and burdened within their present circumstances?

Karl Marx argued that the doctrine of a future life only lulled people into a quiet complacency within circumstances that required their economic and political intervention. His thought was that people will just excuse present evils, and be passive in the face of injustice, all because they are transfixed by a dream of a better future. Although Marx does not understand the true heart of the Christian ethic, his view does fit some of Christendom.

There are those who bear the name of Christ but do not wear His heart and hands within the world. This type of Christian morality is unsound. It argues erroneously by generalizing from the lesser to the greater. The quality of the Creator, and not the creature, informs our theology at the starting point of our belief. It is neither by our actions nor by our quiet endurance that we earn a better situation, or gain a great reward within some future city yet to be revealed in Heaven. The initiative is always God's action in our lives as He accomplishes His purpose, and we simply respond through faith in His Word.

It is God who assures the eschatological considerations of our faith and hope. At the most awesome and holy level of theological deduction, our future existence within the Kingdom of Glory has nothing whatsoever to do with us or our doing. It is in the nature of God--who is Himself Love, and in the power of His agency--which is unlimited, that the validity of the doctrine concerning eternal things has its genesis: "This is love: not that we loved God, but that he loved us and sent his Son as an atoning sacrifice for our sins." (1 John 4:10 NIV.)

The fact of eternal fellowship for God's beloved children is a priori and follows from the nature of the Lord God. God is not limited as are we. The creature must let go of a loved one at the moment of death. But the heart of God cannot bear that even one of His beloved children should part away from His company. God's love is vast as the sky! His power calls forth creation through the Word! The Lord will not loose His embrace upon His beloveds, even though they pass beyond the thresholds of sin and death. This is the Christian assurance that lies not in the appearances of the world, but in the Word of Promise.

Are you assured of heaven, O man? In a dream I found myself in a cemetery lit at twilight. An irresistible force was moving me into the center of the cemetery and towards a doorway in a small, flat-roofed structure. I entered the building and was led down a stairway to a basement chamber. There four walls closed in upon a monolithic slab of carved rock. The rock stood four feet high and was two feet wide and seven feet long. This hewn boulder sat to the one side of the room.

The same force that drove me into the heart of the cemetery and into the basement chamber, next compelled me to lie upon the cold stone. Here, in my dream, I was enacting the reality of my mortality.

But even as my eyes closed in death, suddenly they were startled into wide-eye amazement. I looked to the far wall and saw that it was no longer simply cold stone. Light was streaming in from what resembled the large, open glass of a storefront window. I got up, no longer compelled but very drawn, and walked over to see the sight that had been opened in upon my tomb. Before me walked creatures of a height and grace which I have no eloquence to describe. I had a sense of complete safety, peace, beauty, and joy.

Do you find beauty, O man, in your life? There was a time when I found no beauty. A landscape sporting the colors of autumn reflected by a still pond was not beautiful to me, but ugly. Nature was heinous because it concealed behind its veneer the red tooth-and-claw of animals preying upon animals, and the corruption of mighty oaks falling victim to blights and diseases.

There was a time when the sculptured skyline of a large city, with skyscrapers reflecting back the red rays of dawn or showing off their bright and colorful night lights, gave me no joy. I knew that in the heart of the city lurked men doing terrible crimes, shedding blood, and acting out nefarious and unspeakably evil fantasies within its shadows.

There was a time when I lamented the birth of a child. I found no beauty in the precision of each delicate part of the child's body--so wonderfully fitted together for life. I was not enticed by the softness of the newborn's skin, blushed red from birth, so smooth and silky. The babe's tiny hands waving with staccato motion through the air did not enchant me. I saw too clearly the marks of age hidden within the future, and that death and decay awaited this tiny life so insignificantly born within a sea of stars.

Then came the day of sheer grace when I sat looking at a natural landscape. As I pondered creation before me, I despaired the brutality of a natural world ruled by the survival of the fittest. And as I brooded darkly within my heart, God opened unto me the words of Isaiah as he proclaimed the kingdom which God would one day give to His saints: "No lion will be there, nor will any ferocious beast get up on it; they will not be found there. But only the redeemed will walk there." (Isaiah 35:9 NIV)

And for the first time I understood that the beauty stretched out before my eyes, which spoke with a kinsman's voice to my soul, was real! It proclaimed a world yet to come when everything beautiful will be cleansed of everything evil. The red tooth-and-claw within nature would be excluded. What we see now in the cycle of the plant kingdom, as death leads to decay, will be recast as mountains and hills burst into song and the trees of the field clap their hands.

The exercise of human agency within New Jerusalem would give rise to a society of great love and beauty. All things hateful and evil would be excluded. All those who would shed blood and bring violence within human enterprise would be gone, as the Saint experienced sheer joy:

[7] He who overcomes will inherit all this, and I will be his God and he will be my son. [8] But the cowardly, the unbelieving, the vile, the murderers, the sexually immoral, those who practice magic arts, the idolaters and all liars-- their place will be in the fiery lake of burning sulfur. This is the second death." (Revelation 21 NIV)

Our bodies, originally created by God to be beautiful, and tooled and crafted by Him to live forever, will be restored for the Saints. The former things that came with the curse brought by the Old Adam will be overcome in the final revelation of the New Adam. The voice that thundered from the throne of heaven to the Island of Patmos, made all of this clear to me. His words broke open joy within my heart:

[3] And I heard a loud voice from the throne saying, "Now the dwelling of God is with men, and he will live with them. They will be his people, and God himself will be with them and be their God. [4] He will wipe every tear from their eyes. There will be no more death or mourning or crying or pain, for the old order of things has passed away." (Revelation 21 NIV)

Passing away with the old order will be all agencies causing human harm and suffering. They will no longer cause harm within God's new creation. No matter what the Magician and the rebel can unleash to harm us in this life, they cannot harm the Saint in the life yet to come. The curse will be lifted, and gone with the curse will be all twilight, shadows, and midnight:

[3] No longer will there be any curse. The throne of God and of the Lamb will be in the city, and his servants will serve him. [4] They will see his face, and his name will be on their foreheads. [5] There will be no more night. They will not need the light of a lamp or the light of the sun, for the Lord God will give them light. And they will reign for ever and ever. (Revelation 22 NIV)

O Saints of God, may those of us who walk through the great tribulation never forget the heart of Abraham. Abraham heard the word of God, and he trusted the promise contained within God's covenant. At God's word, Abraham left family and friends to chart out into the unknown land which was to become his home. Abraham's faith is a bold testimony to us all. His setting was a time in which the tribal clan meant security against other warring tribes. Abraham's departure from his father's house represented a strong faith and courage that God is able to deliver what He has promised: "By faith Abraham, when called to go to a place he would later receive as his inheritance, obeyed and went, even though he did not know where he was going." (Hebrews 11:8 NIV.)

We are heirs to the promises of God made to Abraham, but will we believe and act as members of Abraham's family? Is the Word of God more real to us than the phantoms of our hearts? If we look to the promises as we must look to God Himself, then we should not expect to see them contained within earthen vessels: Our cup overflows!

There is a great mystery and adventure to this life. Look and see, O man, that it is precisely in the veil that we discover the truth! We follow a God whose face in glory we have never seen, but the Word became veiled within flesh and pure Love came to our planet. We trust the Incarnate Word, though the Word speaks of things eternal and beautiful that no mortal eye has ever seen. Love and Life are not products of human imagination or design. They are real! They are transcendent! They are proven not by empirical observation, but through human agency in tune with a great and lofty Power that even now searches out the hearts of men.

The Lord of Love is encountered at present only as the door of our hearts are opened to Him. The power to believe in God and His promises comes to us through the Holy Spirit who has opened the inner eye, though partly, to the reality of Love Himself. In this Love, the Fellowship of the Cross lives, and moves, and has its being. In this Love, the Fellowship of the Cross reaches out with hands and hearts to a hurting world. Said the Lord of Love:

[25] "Righteous Father, though the world does not know you, I know you, and they know that you have sent me. [26] I have made you known to them, and will continue to make you known in order that the love you have for me may be in them and that I myself may be in them." (John 17 NIV)

I wonder, O man, how can your eyes be opened to the great reality of the love of God--but perhaps you are beginning to see... perhaps you already know! Look to Jesus and His wounds, but not with the clinical eye which evaluates existence through the elemental flux. Look to Christ through your heart: His passion for you and me was more intense than any earthly lover's yearning! His pain and sacrifice for You and me was marked upon real flesh. Real tears flowed from the Lord's eyes! Real blood was shed from the Savior's disfigured frame on the cross! What man would let himself be so ravaged and humiliated? What Love brought the King of kings to the scorn of the Cross!

The Cross offends natural man as it reveals the character of God. A man is by inclination unwilling to die for another man, and we naturally conclude that if God exists, He would not suffer for the work of His hand. The offense of the Cross is that hateful men refuse to acknowledge the awesome reality of Love. To accept the fact that God could come and die for us requires that we too walk the path of Calvary and the cross: "As you sent me into the world, I have sent them into the world." (John 17:18 NIV.)

We would rather go to Babylon than to Calvary. The bright and sparkling jewels of this world, though passing, are sweet to our senses. And yet, O man, the Lord of Love is the great Gem that God has hidden within human history to be discovered by the heart of faith. The Saint is moved against his corrupted nature to sell all, if necessary, in order to fully possess Christ. The Fellowship of the Cross is composed of beggars by the standards of Babylon. Babylon mocks us as we find our wealth beyond the cave. "You believe in mere promises," cries the dark city, "but we believe in the strength of our walls."

O Babylon, would that you could see that it is not a finite creature who makes promises to the Saints! The Lord of Love, the Lamb of Calvary, the blazing Light on Damascus, the One who died and rose for us, it is He who speaks! He has come! He has died! He is risen! He has prepared a place for the Saints! He will come again! He has forged a path upon which the Saints walk within the City of God. Through the Cross of Christ, God has brought us, even now, into the Kingdom of Heaven: "For he has rescued us from the dominion of darkness and brought us into the kingdom of the Son he loves." (Colossians 1:13 NIV.)

The kingdom of God is so great that it is presented only as an existential reality to the heart of the Saint--though he now experiences it dimly within the twilight of Babylon. We are already marked by and sealed under the signet of God's unbounded power and authority as it is released within Baptism and faith. The Magician and the rebel may wail against us, but we are fortified within the Kingdom of Christ.

Yet for a season, the Saint will offer his body as a living Sacrament to the world. As Christ walked to His cross at Calvary, so the Fellowship of the Cross sojourns for a time in Gethsemane. O Saints of God, do not despair! A Garden awaits beyond the garden of twilight and death. It is our real destiny! It is our final home! Our hope and yearning is not the product of a dream for a better life, but is built upon the Rock of Ages, the Lord of Love.

It is in the nature of God Himself, as He is made known in the heart of Christ, that the Fellowship of the Cross draws its assurance. We herald joy because we are rooted in the fountain of joy. We are not deluded! We are not dreamers! We have truly beheld Christ as He acts in history, and we now speak with Him in the chamber of our hearts and He speaks to us through the Holy Scriptures and blessed Sacraments. We have the confidence of an eternal existence within the Kingdom of Joy, Love, and Adventure because we truly believe, though our knowledge is as little as a mustard seed, the revelations concerning the Lord of Love.

If you do not believe, O man, the promises of joy which meet you in both the Old and New Testaments of the Bible, it is only because you see too faintly the Lord of Love. Some look for Him in the world alone, and they are frustrated as they meet instead the Deus Absconditus--the "God of Obscurity." These are under the spell of the Magician and cannot see God. In twilight no one can determine the hand of God. And if God were to appear to us in His glory, the whole fabric of creation would burst to contain Him.

If you are to know, O man, the will and character of God within this present and partial creation, you must look to Him in the mystery of the Incarnation. There He is revealed as Victor over sin, death, and the devil. And there we are thunderstruck to see that His victory came through the power of love and not the force of coercion. We discover a meaning to life in Jesus as the greater reality of Love breaks into our existence. The awesome Lord of Love has come and established His Kingdom upon the earth, and the Fellowship of the Cross has been gathered from all people to enter the greater reality.

It is the greater reality that the Magician and the rebel have sought to keep out through the walls of Babylon. They have used the rhetoric of naturalism to hold out the rule of heaven. Yet the whole Bible points to another reality in which this universe is but one room in a vast mansion. It is also made clear in Scripture that this world is subjected under the rule of Satan, and his vassal, the rebel.

Salvation History is the Golden Thread marked by God upon the affairs of man as Christ has forged a secret path for His returning prodigals to use in their journey home. The Law and the prophets held open the door since Eden fell, and the Church since Christ ascended. It is a doorway which allows access across the borders of Babylon to the Kingdom of God: The Saints are in the world but not of the world! The Door is the Cross of Christ. Those who are offended by the Cross never pass through to the Overworld. But those who see the character of God in the revelation of the Cross are already through the Door--they have passed from death into life and will never die! Existentially, life is a quality of being given to the Saints both in this world and the world to come. It is a quality that enters the hearts of those who are opened to the Lord Jesus Christ.

Your heart, O man, will not burst apart as Christ enters its chambers. But, O! the ecstasy! Like a robin who sings for the joy of the morning, so our song rises to meet our Lord. What a gift God has given the robin in its song! What a joy God has given mankind as we are permitted to worship Him! How dry love is when lovers cannot adore one another. Worship is not our task, it is our rapture! It can no more be made to happen than one can make oneself to love. But let the Lord of Love enter, and the Light of His presence will fill our life with the Joy which overflows in song and praise.

How sad it would be if lovers could not share the mysteries of their affection for one another! At the cross, and in our hearts, Christ whispers of the Father's love for us. In our worship we spill out with words of adoration and love for God. And the day is coming when even creation will share in the joy of the Saint:

[12] You will go out in joy and be led forth in peace; the mountains and hills will burst into song before you, and all the trees of the field will clap their hands. [13] Instead of the thornbush will grow the pine tree, and instead of briers the myrtle will grow. This will be for the LORD's renown, for an everlasting sign, which will not be destroyed. (Isaiah 55 NIV)

For now, we are told by Saint Paul, that all creation is in labor until the children of God are delivered. He goes on to tell us that we, as creatures, are also in birth-pains until the final liberation of this existence from the authorities of Babylon. The apostle reminds us that life is not all joy for the Christian. As Christ sweated blood in Gethsemane, so the Saints experience dark hours of temptation and loss.

Blessed are those who endure to the end! In this world there is trial and tribulation, but Christ has overcome the authorities of Babylon. In the space between the now and yet to be revealed, God enlists His Saints into the campaign against darkness. God uses the Fellowship of the Cross to bring liberty to those rebels who are marked by God to become returning prodigals.

Isn't it astounding, O man, how Christ enlists prodigals into the Fellowship of the Cross. At first, the returning prodigal joins because he somewhat devilishly covets the beauty of the Lord of Love. Christ's promises are the sweet words of a lover's covenant, and the prodigal wants the fruit of His promises. But in time, the Saint is transformed by his own living with the Lord. He no longer loves for his own pleasure, but he loves for the sake of Love.

A man may selfishly marry a woman for her beauty and ability. He fantasizes concerning all the pleasures which will come to him because he has made her his own. Sometimes he later discovers that external beauty is superficial, and beneath the veneer lies a scorpion full of bites. But again, often the man will be fortunate and sup and sup upon existence with his wife. Then one day, he happily discovers that her love has transformed his own love for her. He continues to have joy in her company, but his greatest pleasure is in her pleasure. In this same way the prodigal comes to maturity, and enjoys existence in Christ, but his greatest pleasure is found in the will of the Lord of Love Himself.

Love is a mystery known only to lovers. The bonds of love, and its secret affections, are unreal to those who stand on the outside of its embrace. Love is certainly not irrational, but reason faintly describes it. It certainly is empirical, but it cannot be discovered through dissection. Now when it is LOVE that enters the finite heart--when an ocean is fitted into a drop!--then only existence itself can express the relationship: Words are hushed, and poets fear to capture, the love between Christ and the Saint.

The Saint longs for the embrace of God, but often the twilight of the cave diminishes the sense of Christ's presence with the Saint. Even when the drop contains oceans-- doubts, specters, and the weight of suffering vex the finite heart. Too quickly and too often worldly concerns diminish the Saint's sense of the reality of God and His abiding nearness. Anfechtung! Anfechtung!

Yet what the heart experiences in the dark hour of the soul does not change anything! God has come and laid His claim upon each Saint. The day is coming when the totality of God's presence will be experienced forever without darkness or hindrance, and night shall be no more!

The Saints of God desire to live in His presence, but the rebel is disgusted and pulls away from the love of God. The freedom offered in holy love is bondage to the rebel. The rebel will not let his life be circumscribed by the holy. It is holy love that is expressed between God and His children--for all eternity!

The rebel wants no such limitations upon his existence. Seeking total freedom, the rebel ends up enslaved to selfishness and sin. Love and Holiness are not two things, but One-and-the-Same seen differently from a human point of view. Transcendent revelation makes known the unity of love and holiness within the being of God. The rebel understands no transcendent truth, therefore he cannot but sin and corrupt history. He claims to love this planet, but he treats it as a whore.

The rebel has taken the world captive in the chains of his apostasy. Yet I speak the word of consolation to the Fellowship of the Cross: Your tears shed for injustice will soon be turned into a fount of Joy. Your despair for the tortured and murdered innocent will be turned into rejoicing as you sup with them the endless cup of mirth. Your open wounds marked by the rebel's cruelty will be clothed in the flesh of a glorious new body:

[51] Listen, I tell you a mystery: We will not all sleep, but we will all be changed-- [52] in a flash, in the twinkling of an eye, at the last trumpet. For the trumpet will sound, the dead will be raised imperishable, and we will be changed. (1 Corinthians 15 NIV)

For a time, O Saints, we are in travail as we sojourn as ministers in the rebel's cave. Yet for all eternity we shall dwell in the Kingdom of God! This is not the myth of a child's dream. It is fact that rests upon the Rock of Ages--the Lord of Love. God is Love, but in the land of twilight we cannot see the fullness of God's love for us. But one thing is certain, God will not let go of even one of His children! None shall be lost! In Christ Jesus we glimpse both the Power of Love, and His power over death: "Where, O death, is your victory? Where, O death, is your sting?" (1 Corinthians 15:55 NIV.)

The Fellowship of the Cross is made alive in Christ. During the time of great tribulation, something very beautiful will take place behind the ugly walls of Babylon. The Saints within the fellowship will become more and more lovely, and they will see this quality growing among themselves. Something deep and wonderful will take place within the Fellowship of the Cross. Although experiencing the worst of times, the saints walking through the omega point of history will drink deeply of the power of love and be satisfied.

As the Fellowship lives through the presence of love, so rebels perish in its absence. Love and Life are qualities of existence only faintly perceived by the rebel. He cannot grasp either of these realities because they lie in the Overworld outside the walls of his fortress prison. Said the Alpha and Omega: "The Spirit gives life; the flesh counts for nothing. The words I have spoken to you are spirit and they are life." (John 6:63 NIV.) All that the rebels see, and care to see, are the constructions of their flesh, formed from the elements, and fashioned by their conceits. The rebels are already entombed in death, and the Saints are even now resurrected:

[25] Jesus said to her, "I am the resurrection and the life. He who believes in me will live, even though he dies; [26] and whoever lives and believes in me will never die. Do you believe this?" (John 11 NIV) Do you, O man, believe that the LORD OF LOVE is the source of eternal life? The Fellowship of the Cross trusts, though imperfectly, in Christ the True Vine. In Him we are attached. In Him we are consoled. In Him we sup the nectar of transcendent truth. His revelation upon the cross exclaims the radical and unbounded nature of God's love for His creatures. The Spirit has led the Saints to the cross at Calvary, and each one of us has heard his soul cry out, "Crucify Him!" And to our shock, and our shame, and our joy we have heard Him say, "Father, forgive them."

Who can believe this love of God! Who can fathom its depths! Who can soar its heights! Who dares to look at the Cross with more than a passing glance for fear that the true glory of its revelation might rend apart our selfish hearts. Yes Lord, the Old Adam would keep you at a distance, for Your love threatens to undo his plots and plans. But Your mysterious coming has worked and the New Adam is born with flesh undefiled. Who can proclaim the deed? Who can capture the radiance of the transcendent and sacramental God within the light of the cave?

I am a poet, and I must portray my words in the tones of twilight. I cannot speak of Your glory, O almighty God. Language fails me as I seek to express Your Light, O my Lord and Love and Life! It is done, I can say little more: Come, Lord Jesus, come! We await the dawn when the radiance of Your love is fully seen. We are the Bride who trusts in the promises that You have vowed within our hearts. We are different from cave dwellers, marked as people who conceal transcendent existence, and therefore we are despised within Babylon. As the Virgin Mary undefiled, we are scorned by the world as we carry your holy mark. We are Your betrothed, and we await the wedding feast:

The Spirit and the bride say, "Come!" And let him who hears say, "Come!" Whoever is thirsty, let him come; and whoever wishes, let him take the free gift of the water of life. (Revelation 22:17 NIV)


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