Posted: 6/24/05
CYBER COLUMN:
The presence of Christ
By John Duncan
| John Duncan |
I’m sitting here under the old oak tree, thinking about the presence of Christ. Jesus said, “I am telling you what I have seen in the Father’s presence, and you do what you have heard from your father” (John 8:38).
The poet Gerard Manley Hopkins details Christ’s presence in his poem As Kingfishers Catch Fire:
As kingfishers catch fire, dragonflies draw flame;
As tumbled over rim in roundy wells
Stones ring; like each tucked string tells, each hung bell’s
Bow swung finds tongue to fling out broad its name;
Each mortal thing does one thing and the same:
Deals out that being indoors each one dwells;
Selves-goes itself; myself it speaks and spells,
Crying, “What I do is me: for that I came.”
I say more: the just man justices;
Keeps grace: that keeps all his goings graces;
Acts in God’s eye what in God’s eye he is—
Christ. For Christ plays in ten thousand places,
Lovely in limbs, and lovely in eyes not his
To the Father through the features of men’s faces.
He speaks of Christ who, in his presence, “plays in ten thousand places.”
Christ in his presence shows up in hospital rooms, in back alleys where indigents dig for scrap food in dumpsters, in the eyes of a father whose tears trickle down the cheek at graduation exercises, at funerals where widowers weep, in birthday celebrations, at church, in prayer meetings, but, mostly, Christ shows up in the human heart. Christ plays in the ten thousand places, but he plays a melody of joy when he resides in the human heart.
The other day, I heard a lady describe her airplane ride to another city. She got up out of her chair and went to the back of the airplane to the bathroom. While waiting in line, she looked through the window.
A man wearing a large cross around his neck saw her and asked, “Are you looking for someone?”
“No,” she replied, “I am simply looking at the stars.”
“Look closely, and you’ll see angels,” the cross-bearing man responded.
“All I see is stars,” the lady again replied.
“Look real close, and you can see Christ on the wing,” he chimed.
The whole discussion led them to talk about their common faith and witness to the living presence of Christ.
So, here I am on this hot Texas summer day, thinking about Christ’s presence.
Somehow, my mind drifts to North Carolina, in the mountains where my grandmother lived. She eases into the room on a cool night while the mountain winds blow the curtains. A car passes by. The stars shine brightly. A cricket chirps. A firefly glows. The floor creaks. And then my grandmother whispers in the quietness,
Now I lay me down to sleep
I pray the Lord my soul to keep
If I should die before I wake
I pray the Lord my soul to take.
As the breezes blew and while my grandmother whispered her prayer, I sensed God’s presence. “Be still and know that he is God” (Psalm 46:10). Christ plays in ten thousand places; he makes a melody in the soul.
I believe in God’s presence. And next time I fly on an airplane, I’ll think of the cross, glance out the window for the stars, and look for Christ on the wing.
John Duncan is pastor of Lakeside Baptist Church in Granbury, Texas, and the writer of numerous articles in various journals and magazines.
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