07/28/06
The Lost
Jill Carattini
I am of the mindset that Sunday afternoons are meant for wandering. At least for me it is a hallowed task. There seems nothing more Sabbath-like than exploring for the sake of exploration, and I am content to do so by car or on foot, in a busy mall or in my mind. On Sunday the journey is not the means but the end--and it changes my perspective completely.
Last Sunday on our way home from church something different caught my husband's eye, though we were on a road we both use daily. It was a small cemetery, contained by a fence that was deteriorating and concealed by a tiny forest spared by contractors. The cemetery was old; the grave stones were toppled or badly weathered, some dating as far back as the 1800's. The place seemed like it had been forgotten--or perhaps like someone was hoping it would be forgotten. It was a lost plot of history hidden inconspicuously between large hotels and office buildings.
Scripture often speaks of the omnipresent character of God, and it is this attribute that struck me as I walked among the stones. "He is Lord of both the dead and the living" Paul writes in Romans 14:9. For God there is no forgotten grave or child lost; there is no place we can flee from his presence. Whether we are running from his voice or crying out from the depths, our frames are never hidden from the one who formed them.
It was a striking contrast: I had driven past this cemetery a thousand times and never seen it. But God knew each one buried there by name.
Yet as I walked away, I was seized by the thought that my oversight was not accidental. It was a plot of land that had been concealed on purpose, and then hidden by my own expectation of what belonged there. Contractor, consumer, or neighbor--we don't want to see cemeteries beside our hotels or grave stones beside our office parking lots. The cemetery was "lost" because we had hidden it from ourselves. It was forgotten by our own doing.
I wonder how often I have behaved similarly with life, drawing fences around questions that haunt or convictions I don't want to see, hiding sin or sorrow until it is forgotten. How often are we the cause of our own blindness or the hands that work to conceal the thing we need most to see? We are so easily misled by own distractions, lost by our own intentions--while our truest thoughts are like hidden cemeteries in the great worlds we build for ourselves.
For centuries God has been calling us out of these hidden worlds and lost ways. Since Eden, He has been positing the question to hiding people: "Where are you?" (Genesis 3:9). As with Adam, it is not for God's sake that He inquires--it is you and I who need to be asked. God knows precisely where we are, and yet He seeks the lost. To those who are hiding from themselves and from Him, He calls them to love with all their hearts, souls, and minds. To those who have forgotten, He urges them to seek and find. To those who do not see, He moves them to sight. And to those who are lost, He sends the Son to save. "For the Son of Man was sent to seek and to save what was lost" (Luke 19:10).
Our inability to flee from the presence of God is not a statement about us but a promise about his faithfulness. "'Am I only a God nearby,' declares the LORD, 'and not a God far away? Can anyone hide in secret places so that I cannot see him?' declares the LORD. 'Do not I fill heaven and earth?'" (Jeremiah 23:23-24). However distanced from the Father we have become, it is not far for the one who longs to save. However lost we have managed to make ourselves, the Son has already found us. However thorough our attempts to hide or great the distance we have run away, it is nothing to the one who never lets us out of his sight. Being found is only a matter of turning around.
The Lost
Jill Carattini
I am of the mindset that Sunday afternoons are meant for wandering. At least for me it is a hallowed task. There seems nothing more Sabbath-like than exploring for the sake of exploration, and I am content to do so by car or on foot, in a busy mall or in my mind. On Sunday the journey is not the means but the end--and it changes my perspective completely.
Last Sunday on our way home from church something different caught my husband's eye, though we were on a road we both use daily. It was a small cemetery, contained by a fence that was deteriorating and concealed by a tiny forest spared by contractors. The cemetery was old; the grave stones were toppled or badly weathered, some dating as far back as the 1800's. The place seemed like it had been forgotten--or perhaps like someone was hoping it would be forgotten. It was a lost plot of history hidden inconspicuously between large hotels and office buildings.
Scripture often speaks of the omnipresent character of God, and it is this attribute that struck me as I walked among the stones. "He is Lord of both the dead and the living" Paul writes in Romans 14:9. For God there is no forgotten grave or child lost; there is no place we can flee from his presence. Whether we are running from his voice or crying out from the depths, our frames are never hidden from the one who formed them.
It was a striking contrast: I had driven past this cemetery a thousand times and never seen it. But God knew each one buried there by name.
Yet as I walked away, I was seized by the thought that my oversight was not accidental. It was a plot of land that had been concealed on purpose, and then hidden by my own expectation of what belonged there. Contractor, consumer, or neighbor--we don't want to see cemeteries beside our hotels or grave stones beside our office parking lots. The cemetery was "lost" because we had hidden it from ourselves. It was forgotten by our own doing.
I wonder how often I have behaved similarly with life, drawing fences around questions that haunt or convictions I don't want to see, hiding sin or sorrow until it is forgotten. How often are we the cause of our own blindness or the hands that work to conceal the thing we need most to see? We are so easily misled by own distractions, lost by our own intentions--while our truest thoughts are like hidden cemeteries in the great worlds we build for ourselves.
For centuries God has been calling us out of these hidden worlds and lost ways. Since Eden, He has been positing the question to hiding people: "Where are you?" (Genesis 3:9). As with Adam, it is not for God's sake that He inquires--it is you and I who need to be asked. God knows precisely where we are, and yet He seeks the lost. To those who are hiding from themselves and from Him, He calls them to love with all their hearts, souls, and minds. To those who have forgotten, He urges them to seek and find. To those who do not see, He moves them to sight. And to those who are lost, He sends the Son to save. "For the Son of Man was sent to seek and to save what was lost" (Luke 19:10).
Our inability to flee from the presence of God is not a statement about us but a promise about his faithfulness. "'Am I only a God nearby,' declares the LORD, 'and not a God far away? Can anyone hide in secret places so that I cannot see him?' declares the LORD. 'Do not I fill heaven and earth?'" (Jeremiah 23:23-24). However distanced from the Father we have become, it is not far for the one who longs to save. However lost we have managed to make ourselves, the Son has already found us. However thorough our attempts to hide or great the distance we have run away, it is nothing to the one who never lets us out of his sight. Being found is only a matter of turning around.
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