Bony Providence
Or
Providential Questions.
The other day whilst exploring the ruins of a Medieval Church, hidden deep in a wooded valley, I came across on the ground in the church yard a human bone.
The top part of a knee I think.
As I held it in my hand I wondered about the long process that had taken it from burial deep in the ground to laying on the surface. In my mind’s eye I pictured the mourners gathered at the graveside, and the clergyman saying the prayers, and the lowering of the coffin, and then the grave digger filling in the ground…then what was it, tree roots over time? Or the action of underground water flows? Or burrowing creatures? And how long had the journey back to daylight taken?
Anyway, being a clergyman it is my job to bury our mortal remains so I reburied the bone as best I could under a heavy stone and said a prayer, “May the faithful departed rest in peace, and rise in glory – but not yet, you have to be patient for a while longer!”
Then I wondered why the long process of change and decay that brought the bone to the surface had been timed to coincide with my feet and gaze being in that remote place?
Providence is the hand of God at work in this world, some people claim to understand it but I don’t. I think Providence raises more questions than answers. Sometimes by our conceit or wisdom we think we can figure out the ways of God, and who knows, maybe sometimes we are right?
In Jesus the hand of God was made flesh, and in following in the way of Jesus I understand a little more of the ways of God, but not so much as to know the history and meaning of a bone found lying in the grass of an ancient church yard.
God raised Jesus from the dead, and therein lays our hope of one day fully understanding His providence as we too shall be raised, and in the light of His infinite love see ourselves and all things as we really are.
Until then we must be patient on this earth, or under it.
1 Corinthians 13: 12 (NKJV)
For now we see in a mirror, dimly, but then face to face. Now I know in part, but then I shall know just as I also am known.
1 Corinthians 15: 51 – 57 (NIV)
Listen, I tell you a mystery: We will not all sleep, but we will all be changed— 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. For the perishable must clothe itself with the imperishable, and the mortal with immortality. When the perishable has been clothed with the imperishable, and the mortal with immortality, then the saying that is written will come true: “Death has been swallowed up in victory.”
“Where, O death, is your victory?
Where, O death, is your sting?”
The sting of death is sin, and the power of sin is the law. But thanks be to God! He gives us the victory through our Lord Jesus Christ.
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