“18 For you have not come to what may be touched, a blazing fire and darkness and gloom and a tempest 19 and the sound of a trumpet and a voice whose words made the hearers beg that no further messages be spoken to them. 20 For they could not endure the order that was given, “If even a beast touches the mountain, it shall be stoned.” 21 Indeed, so terrifying was the sight that Moses said, “I tremble with fear.” 22 But you have come to Mount Zion and to the city of the living God, the heavenly Jerusalem, and to innumerable angels in festal gathering, 23 and to the assembly of the firstborn who are enrolled in heaven, and to God, the judge of all, and to the spirits of the righteous made perfect, 24 and to Jesus, the mediator of a new covenant, and to the sprinkled blood that speaks a better word than the blood of Abel. 25 See that you do not refuse him who is speaking. For if they did not escape when they refused him who warned them on earth, much less will we escape if we reject him who warns from heaven. 26 At that time his voice shook the earth, but now he has promised, “Yet once more I will shake not only the earth but also the heavens.” 27 This phrase, “Yet once more,” indicates the removal of things that are shaken—that is, things that have been made—in order that the things that cannot be shaken may remain. 28 Therefore let us be grateful for receiving a kingdom that cannot be shaken, and thus let us offer to God acceptable worship, with reverence and awe, 29 for our God is a consuming fire.” (Heb 12:18-29 ESV)

Almost as if beleaguered beyond repair, event horizon means game day: we almost ducked out, just as Tomorrow arrives bold and crusading forth. Just as the Next Big Thing sees all the world gyre and ripple, giant waves of Difference as the world settles into some New Groove. As if our own labors were central, central to our personal Outlook, and the fact: God has more to teach us, regarding the mirage, illusion of concrete Fact and Reality. All the world will buck and shake. All the world enters a New Millenium of New existential… angst? Resignation? Or a delightful New Tomorrow built for Decisions past to be taken to their logical extreme.

Do we fear, then, the Judgment on our own decisions past? If it feels precious, constrained, claustrophobic, be Real O Man! You are not on the witness stand nor in the party of the defense, as somehow Responsible once Christ has slipped in furtively and stolen the guilt. It will be okay! Life will continue to have her ways of Surprise and Cultivating the youth, Mending the aged beleaguered, unfurling sail upon wavy sail of Career and Purpose for the middling years.

Because it is some strange relativity that makes us feel at times like the center of it all. As if, childlike, the world’s horizon rises and lowers according to our gaze. And that is the bucking bronco reminder: God uses such culpability to mock our desire for More. To mock our human inclination both to want to be “in charge” and to want our sins removed. No responsibility, culpability absent, His horizon being what, all things told, we are Seeing.

And then, that frightful near loss of it all, as Tomorrow hastens but sick ward hastens just as speedily. Hem us up, just as gameday arrived, oh yeah, O devil? Just make us start to give in and give up, bored, waiting for nothing as it seems to turn out. It is the watchful ones who will lead the world to its skin-of-the-teeth Survivalist deeds. And those watchful: their temptations are to wander away from the fold, as judgment day draws Nigh. Their temptation is to laugh it off, to decide it was all crazy hallucinations or false sense of heightened alert.

But we are not those despoiled by the ravages of time and pride. We are those miraculously “Gone Christian”: we converted, and wrestle with the non-believer’s testimony as well. Do we actually have Hope? Not the kind of hope that expects good things magically to appear, but a Hope that survives the cancer and the plague, going sad, greeting some New Day with an initial Tear, moisture in the eye. It is a Tomorrow wherein, when He comes again, there will be Answers and hope indeed fulfilled. But until then, do we have Hope that moves mountains rather than merely assuages or placates? Hope, over and against Futility, Aging, Ennui? All this is ours to live into and to brace: miracle, of you O soldier, to make it thus far! And to go prayerful on the night of His Last Supper: as most slept, we had the unearned Gumption to stay stoic and reserved, to be unexcited but pleasantly Receptive to a lifeline through the prayerful night. It will all Be Okay. That is our Christian Hope. That is our devil-may-care Attitude towards the saints in the land, believer or non.