Friedrich Nietzsche once observed that, "As the circle of science grows larger, it touches paradox at more places."  Though Nietzsche wrote these words in the late nineteenth century, well before the rise of quantum mechanics and relativity and their gradual unbending of physical and chronological certainty in our perception of reality, he was remarkably prescient.  Modern science has indeed demonstrated to us that we must learn to live with paradox in formulating our conclusions about reality, that although we remain perceptual beings, we can not necessarily be certain of how we are seeing what we see, and that we must learn to live with unfinished truths about the way the cosmos works and has (to quote Aratus) "its being".  To live is to live with paradox.
     This brings us to another equally important point about science and us.  Although science is very good at bringing us explanations, even if they often end in unsettling paradox, for how our world and the universe it inhabits process and move about, it is, oddly enough, unable to tell us what these explanations, and the paradoxes on which they often depend, mean.  Put another way, science cannot tell us why.  Why is the world the way it is?  Why is it here?  Why are we here?  And why is paradox the only way that we can understand reality?  Science cannot tell us.
     But God, the God who created reality and the science that explains it, can.  God, the living and active God who, many centuries ago, actually visited and lived in this reality, this reality he himself made, can tell us why we and the world are here.  And though God often seems rife with paradox as well (more on this later), we can nonetheless be assured that God knows, beyond any doubt, what everything uultimately means.  And if, day in and day out, we continue to look, in all things, to God in faith, one day, in an extraordinarily marvelous way, we will know, too.  We will understand.
     And we will never need to ask why again.

     One of the last lines in "Here the Birds' Journey Ends," a poem written by Mahmoud Darwish, reads, "And we will etch on the final rocks, 'Long live life, long live life.'" That's quite a wish.  On the one hand, we know that, unless something extraordinary happens on earth, none of us will live indefinitely on this planet.  One day, we all will die.  As much as we may treasure life, this life we live in this present moment, we know that we will not be able to enjoy it forever.  Eventually, it will end.
     On the other hand, we know that our lives are but one manifestation of the life that grounds the lives that all of us live, that undergirding and fueling our individual lives is life, the life that animates and enlivens us all.  Without this life, none of us would be here.  That we are born, live, and die is the fruit, the outward and visible individuated expression of this "life" that pervades the planet.  We live because there is life, because life exists, exists not just as a concept but as papable and concrete reality.  Without this life, we would have no reality.
     So, yes, indeed, may life live.  May we always be part of and experience this vast bios, this teeming movement of existence that gestates and ripples across the universe and, specifically for us, sweeps and pervades planet Earth.  May life always be, may life always be here to birth us, grow us, enlighten us, even, sadly enough, end us.  May life always be here for us.
     One day, however, even this "life" will end.  The laws of physics demand it.  Nothing lasts forever, not even this bios which we--and everyone who has ever lived or will live--enjoy.
     Or does it?  If this "life" came about through evolution and circumstance, then, yes, we would expect it, like all other things, to end.  That's just the way things are.  We are born, we live, we die, then other people are born, live, and die, and so on until the bios in which we all find existence dies, too.  Tragic, perhaps, but it's reality.
     But it also leaves us without any meaning:  what, really, was the point of anything?
     What if, however, if life is not the product of random variation and circumstance, but the work of God?  What if God is the author of life, this vast and remarkable bios (and our individual expressions of it) we enjoy?  What if God created life, intended for it to be, thus endowing it with meaning and purpose?  What if life has a reason to be here?
     If God created life, then, yes, let life continue to live--even if we one day die.  Why?  If God created life, then it follows that God can create it again.  And again.  And again.  God brings life to be.  Hence, even if we lose this present life, as we one day will, we will live again.  An eternal God who creates a finite existence can also create an eternal one.  Life will continue to live, but it will be lived forever.
     So, yes, long live life, long live this present existence.  Who really wants to die?  But long live even more life beyond it, long live an eternal life (the life) created by an eternal God.  Long live the present, yet long live the future, a future only possible because an eternal God creates it, a future only possible because an intentionally caring God has endowed life with a meaning beyond itself, a meaning rooted in the absolute meaningfulness of an eternal and purposeful creator.
     Long live life:  God's life for us.
    

     Toward the close of the Sermon on the Mount, Jesus compared how two kinds of people, the wise and the foolish, build their houses.  The wise person, he said, builds his house upon a sturdy foundation, one that is hewn from stone and rock.  His house will withstand any storm that comes upon it.

     But the foolish person, he said, builds his house on a foundation of dirt and sand.  His house will vanish with the first storm of the season, gone as quickly as it appeared.

     What do Jesus' metaphors mean?  Let's think about something Jesus said to the Jewish leader Nicodemus toward the beginning of his ministry in Galilee.  As the third chapter of John recounts the episode, Nicodemus admitted to Jesus that the only way that he could have done what he had been doing would be if he had come from God.  Immediately sensing that Nicodemus understood something pivotal to grasping the essence of his ministry, Jesus replied, "Unless one is born again, he cannot see the kingdom of God."

     If you really want to understand and know me, Nicodemus, Jesus was saying, you must become a new person, an absolutely and completely new person.  But, he was also saying, Nicodemus, you will never be able to do this on your own.  You're a captive of the passing sands of your earthly existence.  Nicodemus, you must find your rebirth in God.  You must make God the core of your spiritual genesis and beginning; you must entrust your spiritual journey to God, the rock that withstands all attempts to undermine it.

     When we find our spiritual rebirth in God, we are genuinely and permanently "born again."  We find a uniquely new life, a uniquely new way of being, a joyfully rich beingness that did not come from us but from the only one who can give it to us:  God.  We build our lives on the only foundation that lasts, the foundation in which all things have their origin and meaning.

     And we make the starting points of our life steadfast and sure, our vision clear and true.  We root our lives in a solid footing, a firm escarpment of rebirth and renewal that is rooted in the ultimate truth of creation.  Our lives will hold up under any storms that come our way, our purview supports us through any trial we endure.  Our soul stays fresh, constantly challenged, refined, and encouraged and enabled to become one step better than it is now.  Life becomes an exciting new journey, for it has a new beginning.  Why should it not?  It’s now rooted in God.

     God is a personal God, a profoundly personal God.  And because, as Genesis 1 tells us, he, this personal God created humans--you and me--in his image, we are personal, too, richly personal beings living on a personal planet set into a personal universe.
     And God is a covenantal God, a God of commitment, intentionality and, perhaps most important, promise.  God is a God who remembers, who considers, and who acts, eternally, on behalf of those whom he loves.  God is unfailingly concerned and devoted to the eternal well being of those who long for and call upon him.  It is in God as promise that we find our hope, it is in God as promise we find our meaning.  It is in God as promise that we see the measure of all things.

     Nearly three weeks ago, my wife's uncle, the only surviving member of her parents' generation, died after a brief--he was gone barely a month after he received the diagnosis--battle with pancreatic cancer.  Athough Carol was there, she unfortunately missed his last breath, coming as it did around 1:30 in the morning.  But Ralph had a good life and we were thankful that at 85 he had done everything he had ever wanted to do, even, after living over fifty years in San Antonio, Texas, moving his wife and himself to Grand Junction, Colorado a little over a year before.
     More broadly speaking, Ralph's passing, as should every human passing, gives us pause at the enormity and inevitability of death.  No one can avoid it.  It also serves to remind us, again, of the powerful wisdom expressed in Ecclesiastes 12:13 that, "above all else, fear God and keep his commandments."
     Though we can define the fear of God in a number of ways (the Hebrew word being used here is also translated in other passages as "reverence"), what we want to take away most from this is the fact of God and the moral structure which he implanted in the universe.  If God did not create the world with a moral structure--commandments and moral order--the world simply could not exist, for even to exist is a moral condition.
     Moreover, God's morality is one with his love.  God loves us, God endows us with morality and moral purpose.  Ralph died in God's love, a love of crystal clear moral vision, a vision that, rooted as it is in God, holds all things together with meaning, substance, and purpose.
     We miss you, Ralph, but we are grateful that you died in the compass of the beatific moral vision.

     According to Genesis 11, God (speaking as a triune entity), when he observed that the people living on the earth had gathered together on the plain of Shinar (probably near ancient Babylon, in modern day Iraq) to build a tower to the heavens, resolved to go "down" to the earth and confuse (literally, "mix") their languages (literally, "lips").  Why would God do such a thing?  Why would God not want humans to speak the same language?  Why would he not want people to understand each other?
     Consider the context.  After the fall (Genesis 3), any hope of humanity getting along with itself had vanished.  And after the flood, as Genesis 10 makes clear, humanity began to migrate and diversify, spreading throughout the world, rippling into many, many different tribes and nations, and developing just as many, if not more, different languages.  Though the people in the plain of Shinar were together in intention and speech, even if God had not confused their language, they would have split eventually apart anyway:  a fallen humanity cannot keep itself in constant comraderie and unity.  God knew what had come before and, more importantly, what would yet occur as human history began to play itself out across the landscapes of the planet.  He knew that diversity, though inevitable and entirely human, was, at that time, a reflection, not of divine design, but an unplanned and unconsidered product of human sin.
     But all was not lost.  Think about the day of Pentecost, the day when, by the power of the Holy Spirit, the people who were gathered in a room in Jerusalem began to speak in a multiplicity of languages, languages from all over the known world and, amazingly enough, regardless of the language, could all understand each other.  In an odd sort of way, diversity had now become oneness.  Diversity was now design!  What was God doing?
     What God was doing, in this instance was to, after seeing and grieving over millennia of human fracturing and antimony, in the person and work of his son Jesus, bring the diversity of his human creations back together.  He was bringing people into a new community, a new gathering, a new assembly of life, love, and unity under the heavens.  In the advent of his Son, God was transforming diversity and difference and linguistic variation from points and results of contention and friction into pillars of a community that lauds and celebrates them as visible expressions of the creativity of God.  In the reconciling work of Christ, God ensured that diversity and difference would become, not the random outgrowth of fallenness and sin, but the fully ordained and truest picture of whom God made people to be:  nearly infinite variations, conformed to the image of Jesus Christ and bound in eternal community, of the generative work of a God who desires for them to be with him forever.

     In chapter seven of his enigmatic work, the writer of Ecclesiastes advises, "Do not say, 'Why is it that the former days were better than these?  For it is not from wisdom that you ask about this.'"  When life becomes difficult and full of seemingly insuperable challenges, we are often tempted to look back at other days, other times, and wonder whether we would not be happier living in them instead of the turmoil in which we find ourselves at the present moment.  Or when we attend a reunion, be it high school or college, see our old friends and acquaintances, and relive the halcyon days of our past, those days when responsibilities were few and fun was ever available and present, those days when the world seemed to be always smiling on us and our antics and frivolity, and we then reflect on where we are now and the many obstacles it presents t us, we may wonder why it must be this way, may wonder why we cannot continue to live in such unfettered bliss.  Sometimes the former days really do seem better than the present moment.
     And perhaps from one standpoint they are.  Being young can be very fun (but so can being old!)!  On the other hand, I think the writer is making an important point about God.  He is telling us that although God indeed exists eternally, he is a God not of the past, but a God of the present and, we can be grateful, the future.  While God uses our past in nummerable ways, he is more interested in building upon it to create a better present and, eventually, future for us.  Don't look back, he tells us, but look ahead.  Look ahead to what I still have for you, look ahead to the wonders I have yet to unfold in your life.  I have much more for you.  Remember your past, yes, for that is where you have come from, that is what has made you who you are today, but embrace the future, the future that I, the eternal God has for you.  Rejoice in what I am about to do!
     So does God speak through the prophet Isaiah that, "behold, I will do something new, now it will spring forth; will you not be aware of it?"  Indeed:  open your heart to the newness of God.