The last verse
I was at the Love Oxford day today. For those of you in NZ think Parachute (but surrounded by medieval and dignified buildings in place of cows and Hobbiton), and for those of you elsewhere, think a big open air combined church service from pretty much all (and there's a lot!) the churches in Oxford. I thought it was fantastic :-) And there was a horn player in the band :-D Anyway, some of the hymns got me thinking. We sang two old favourites - How great thou art, and Amazing Grace. My favourite part of these (and most other) hymns is always the last verse. Just read it for yourself:
"When Christ shall come with shouts of acclaimation and take me home, what joy shall fill my heart. Then shall I bow in humble adoration, and there proclaim, My God, how great thou art!" (Carl Gustaf Boberg)
"When we've been here ten thousand years, bright shining as the sun. We've no less days to sing God's praise, than when we first begun." (John Newton wrote the rest of the song, but not the last verse ..)
Anyway, the last verses of these hymns get to me, because they talk about something bigger and longer and greater than this life. They talk about heaven, and eternity, and real worship of an almighty God. And that gets to me. Talk of heaven gets to me, I am hungry for it, hungry for something bigger than this earth. Hungry for eternity and for truth, finally, for truth.
Wayne - the pastor of the church in London, ON - talked about eternity one Sunday. And I guess that one of the things he said then ties in to what I'm trying to say. There is a difference between everlasting and eternal. Everlasting is semi-infinite; from here until forever and ever. But something everlasting has its roots in now, in time. It was made now, but it will last forever. Eternal has infinity on both sides of it. Eternal is forever in the future (we're used to that idea), but it's also forever in the past as well (push the read more button below...)
- Posted by flyingkiwi on 11/06/2006.
- flyingkiwi's site
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