Today I’d like to share some ‘food for thought.’ Perhaps it will provide fare for a future sermon. Most importantly, I hope it will provide fare for your own soul. Preachers dare not neglect their souls! My thoughts stem from my recent re-reading of “The Weight of Glory,” an essay by C. S. Lewis.
In his essay, Lewis observes that books, music, beauty, and pleasant memories stir in us an “inconsolable longing” for a country we have not yet visited. This is especially true for me in September, my favorite month of the year. The arrival of September triggers a lot of memories, emotions, and sensations. The cool, crisp fall air stirs something within me. So does the beginning of a new school year, even though I’m no longer in school. Perhaps it’s the memory of the new friends and new opportunities which new school years provided in the past. I also get nostalgic about the September days I used to spend in the Montana Rockies bow-hunting for elk with my dad. There’s something haunting about the bugle of a bull elk echoing across a mountain canyon. Then there’s fall fly-fishing on the Yellowstone River. Like Norman MacLean, I, too, am haunted by waters.
But what am I to do with these memories and sensations? C. S. Lewis helps me put them in perspective. He argues that these moments or memories of beauty point me to a far-off country. The books or music or memories which awaken something in me are not “the thing itself, but only a reminder of it.” Lewis continues: “The beauty was not in them, it only came through them, and what came through them was longing.”
The problem, though, is that these “good images of what we really desire” can become “dumb idols” if we mistake them for the thing itself. Lewis argues: “They are not the thing itself; they are only the scent of a flower we have not found, the echo of a tune we have not heard, news from a country we have never yet visited.” That country, of course, is the new heaven and new earth. As Lewis says, “our real goal is elsewhere.”
Thank God for those “inconsolable longings” which stir us and haunt us and leave us wanting something more! When you’re stirred by the scent of a flower or haunted by a compelling piece of music, remember that it’s your heart longing for home Paul writes: The sufferings of this present time are not worth comparing with the glory that is to be revealed to us (Romans 8:18). I need that conviction to weigh heavily on me as I follow Christ and preach Christ!
P.S. - When is the last time you preached a sermon on heaven? Revelation 21-22 awaits you!
Posted by Steve Mathewson at 8:00 AM on September 7, 2007
