The Light at the End of the Tunnel

[HKHaugan]

Several years ago when traveling from Paris to London, we went by train at lightning speed across the French landscape and only slowed down to pass through “The Chunnel” that went beneath the English Channel and came up in England. Except for the lights in the train there was nothing but darkness outside as we caromed along. But the thought of being hundreds of feet beneath the surface of the English Channel, well, it does entertain some anxiety as you consider the possibility that the whole thing could collapse. But what sustains you is the belief that it was well constructed, is the trust in the people who let you on and the resulting action to take a trip and enjoy something new. And, voila (Fr.---success!), you emerge from the tunnel into the light as the station appears and you resume your trip into the capital city, London.

Belief, trust and action are human nature’s ‘trinitabilities’ (my word) that replicate God’s Trinity at work in mankind. They are what make us images and likenesses of God as Genesis 1:26 tells us. If we can zero in on those abilities, begin to put them in balance, let them be developed by God’s Word as Jesus did through the power of the Holy Spirit, then we can literally see the light at the end of the tunnel. That is, if we are willing to see the tunnel being this world and its darkness.

Belief, trust and action are the spiritual engines that drive us in the invisible atmosphere that is the spiritual dimension behind everything we visibly and physically experience. As we have previously mentioned it is the balance we bring to them that gives us the stability and confidence to live responsibly in the world. Because we are out of balance from sin Jesus becomes God’s personal provision for our rebalancing. We can see perfect humanity in Him. We are drawn to Him as we are drawn to the sun for its warmth. Our nature feels comfortable in Him even when we know our tendencies are contrary. The things that we should be condemned for are not condemned by Him but softened and fade away when He ministers the forgiveness His Spirit brings within. His complete humanity lifts the bar as we grow and His divinity propels us over it from one moment to the next. He champions faith and makes us His champions as we take up our cross of faith in Him every next moment. He is the achievement of the moment, the inspiration for the next and the horizon for our eternity.

When we believe in Him He takes our mind and challenges us to step into the concepts that make us more truly human. When we trust Him our heart finds the courage to stand in the midst of the most hostile attacks and know His inner strength. When we take that faith step sensing the Spirit’s motivation in our spirit, our action becomes more like His with each passing challenge. It is in those moments we are an image of God consumed in His perfection and we understand the depth of His calling to be perfect as His Father is perfect. Those are the moments of oneness with Him, moments of justification when we realize within that we have been saved by grace through faith. Those are the moments when the light is not just an ‘aha’ but the bliss, the real bliss, we are called to enjoy in Him, the same bliss He described to His disciples when He said He was the light of the world and that we are to be carriers of that light.

It’s in the details of the mind, the heart and the spirit that we become more individual, more personal and interpersonal, more outgoing, more out reaching more out of ourselves where we experience more length and breadth in the specifics the Lord has planned for us. He wants us to enjoy the uniqueness each of has but always in the context of Him and the others with whom we are in contact. Life is ultimately and finally spiritual, personal and interpersonal. That’s what the Kingdom of God is all about. Our mind, our heart and our spirit grow in a unity that finds their fulfillment in Jesus and Jesus alone.

Perhaps now we can grasp why Jesus would teach these most compassionate words in the midst of His deepest suffering with death about to takes its final bite---there on the Cross, feeling our suffering because of our self-chosen alienation, He utters “Father, forgive them for they know not what they do (Jn.23:24).” And why He would teach, for our sake, the words that the world and its self-protective religions reject, “I am the way, the truth and the life. No one comes to the Father except by me (Jn.14:6).” There was and is too much truth, too much love and too much faith in Him to do otherwise. He died embracing the death our sin-induced aloneness deserved so that we might see Him as the One who can revive us through His Resurrection into eternity with Him. He never denied the detail, the specifics and the individual uniqueness of what it means to be a person among persons. His life spelled that out as He moved from place to place and person to person from His birth to His death and in the immediacy of His Resurrection. His ministry in the Holy Spirit is passionately personal and continues now until He returns in full view.

There is no one before or since Jesus that makes sense out of being human the way He does. There is no one before or since Jesus that makes sense out of God the way He does. The reason? Jesus is perfect man and perfect God wrapped up in One Person as only God could make it happen. He is resurrected, alive, thriving and working out His mission for us. If this world is a dark tunnel with all its confusing dead end side tracks of religions, philosophies, socio-political systems and utopic promises about what to believe, who to trust and how to act, Jesus is the One who stands at the end of every person’s tunnel. When we say yes and accept Him for who He really is, God the Son, the true Light of the world, appears.