Fourth Post - Lent 2017 with C.S. Lewis (The Weight of Glory)

"... because God is more than a Person, and lest we should imagine the joy of His presence too exclusively in terms of our present poor experience of personal love, with all its narrowness and strain and monotony, a dozen changing images, correcting and relieving each other, are supplied."
- C.S.Lewis, The Weight of Glory

In this section Lewis starts with list the roughly five categories of promises of scripture:

• We shall be with Christ
• We shall be like Christ
• We shall have "glory"
• We shall in some sense be fed or feasted or entertained
• We shall some sort of position in the universe

At this point he then asks an interesting question: Why are there any other promises other than the first one given that Christ is the summation of all that is good. Lewis' discussion goes into what he thinks is the answer, that the other four promises are expansions of the first. Since God is so much more than what we can imagine, how do we comprehend what it means to be with Him? For Lewis in this address the other promises are guides in symbolic image to help explain what it means.

I don't disagree but will put my own little spin on it. If I think about what I know of the world around the first century, especially the early communities of believers, what would joyful experience mean to me? Maybe rather than be part of a poor, repressed people I would have "glory", I would be special. Maybe rather than being hungry it would mean that I would be fed and never worry about having to do without. Maybe rather than being powerless in my current world system this future hope would mean I have some position, some status. All because being with Christ would mean I would be LIKE Christ. Poor examples I know, but we're trying to communicate something none have experienced and attempted to tell. Oh sure there are some glimpses (the Revelation as described by John, the experience at the Mount of Transfiguration), but no one knows exactly what it means to be with Christ at the end. If I follow my own examples, I wonder what these promises would look like today? What if rather than Christ appearing in the first century Mediterranean area he first appeared in 21st century America? Where would he appear? What would be first people he would go to with his message? And following this passage from Lewis, what would the promises of God look like?

Hmmmm...