On Applying the Future

"Red Sky in morning Sailors take the time to go back to the harbor." 

     My flesh and bones get louder with the years, especially when it involves throwing socks at each other down the hall. I refer to my son and daughter and the lessons they teach in household meteorology. I have become a weather man in my own home, able to read many new signs. Nothing spells a storm like peace and quiet where, shortly before, the winds of racket were making the walls of our little house groan. It was the same when I was young boy: certain Kansas summer days had wind that moved the air too fast to catch for a breath, and the cottonwoods had to spend all day trying to keep their leaves. These were the summer days that turned green in the evening and everyone headed to the basement for the tornado. We could all feel it coming long before the sirens sounded.

     Because there is little risk of tornadoes late in the fall, I found myself out and about towards the end of October this year. As I tunneled through the city a certain placard caught my eye. If I recall it correctly, the sign displayed something like a spindly lady in tall black socks holding one of the three glass Palantirs of Middle Earth. "Oh, our local seer convention is being held somewhere or another" I said to myself. The conference was geared to the fortune teller ilk in order to compare notes on the general trends of futures. Normal paying customers who simply wanted many second opinions/futures did not seem to be the target audience. None the less, it occured to me that really no one has an excuse for not knowing the future. For better or mostly worse it is all around and inside of us each day. Let me explain or if you would prefer I didn't, which may be the voting majority, that's fine. It is a beautiful day outside. 

     As I am into the third paragraph (without the thought to future revisions) I will begin an effort to focus my explanation on one particular important tool of seering that seems to be grossly under appreciated. It is the often accompanying forerunner the future. I've read you can know the harshness of the winter to come by checking the fur on a rabbits foot (or feet). This seems to fit the premise that knowing the future is an elusive undertaking. What we forget is that pretty much every winter around here demands at least a coat and more than one fire. Our excuses for not knowing the future may appeal to the toil it will take to learn it by catching our local rabbit and forget the gift of last year as a forerunner.

     One does not need to look high or low, and even, I say, quite limit his search in the middle, to find this a reality in history. However, if we are going to pick an example, let begin quite near the beginning. A spry young man of 182 years, Lemech, gave the name to one of the first forerunners that come to mind. Noah, and his proclamation of death and flood, went quite unappreciated by most near everyone. The sad reality of the story is that he was a forerunner with a message that they already knew, ignored, and went ahead and mocked him for pointing out. "Death by Drowning? You must be joking!" a question probably lofted his way more than once.They were right in one aspect. Floods had been rare. The problem is their focus created the question. "Drowning" created the question that "death" would accomplish quite happily some other way. They missed the point that they already knew the future and were doing nothing about it. His message hinged less on the miraculous and more on reality. For his message to sink in, what they already knew simply had to be applied. Death was waiting whether by flood or by club, and where is the hope for that future? They wrote off the miraculous as an excuse to ignore the obvious. 

     Now this is not an attempt to disregard the mysterious unknown. By no means! Chesterton aptly points out our incorrect disregard for the wonder of things just because we get used to them happening and expect them to continue "onso." For this reason he states in Orthodoxy, and I agree wholeheartedly: "The only words that ever satisfied me as describing Nature are the terms used in the fairy books, "charm," "spell," "enchantment." They express the arbitrariness of the fact and its mystery. A tree grows fruit because it is a magic tree. Water runs downhill because it is bewitched." However, even with this in mind, what has been made plain has been guaranteed even in the face of mystery. It is the truth of the future that should inform our mysterious present.

     If this were a book the next chapter (this paragraph) would be entitled "...the baptist." Fortunately, paragraphs do not commonly have titles so let's just continue on. In the defense of the person of Christ, His deity, purpose, and our redemption I would need look no further than John the Baptist. A forerunner extraordinaire. The man who had been prophesied about as a voice in the wilderness preparing the way. The forerunner of forerunners. The man commissioned with laying out the nearness of redemption to all who would listen. Any decrier of the Christian faith would have an uphill battle when trying to throw out John's testimony. He had nothing to gain in an earthly kingdom, he was killed for his honest testimony and speech about something else altogether, and he had doubts as any human but spoke what he knew. Even Jesus points to the reliability of his testimony in John 5. His testimony of preparation for the future was secure in Christ, and  was one of God's ways of making the future known and ready, even for us, by his forerunnership. 

     Along with John's witness of Christ, I am reminded of when Paul speaks of believers in 1 Thessalonians on how "you turned from idols to serve the living and true God, and to wait for his Son from heaven, whom he raised from the dead, Jesus who delivers us from the wrath to come." We have been already delivered from the wrath that is to come. Our future is known as is that of those who are perishing. It is nothing less than the great commission that has made us forerunners with this knowledge. 

     "So when God desired to show more convincingly to the heirs of the promise the unchangeable character of his purpose, he guarantedd it with an oath, so that by two unchangeable things, in which it is impossible for God to lie, we who have fled for refuge might have strong encouragement to hold fast to the hope set before us. We have this as a sure and stadfast anchor of the soul, a hope that enters into the inner place behind the curtain, where Jesus has gone as a forerunner on our behalf, having become a high priest forever after the order of Melchizedek" (Hebrews 6:17-20)

     Noah a forerunner, John a forerunner, we as forerunners and Christ our forerunner.

     Historians implore us to not forget the past. Admittedly there may be a great deal of danger in ignoring the lessons of the past, but I would venture to say that ignoring the lesson of the future holds much more peril. Maybe we as followers of Christ should initiate our own fortune teller's conference (only without the high black socks) and invite all who will listen.

Phillip Tippin

December 17, 2010

Roeland Park, KS