The saddest thing in the world seems to be the empty room after the party. Wedding, baby shower, graduation, retirement, 40th birthday, whatever you are celebrating, so much planning and eagerness and hope goes into the affair, that half an hour after the last guest has left, you are left feeling as if there is now a gigantic hole in your life. We work ourselves up into such heights of expectation and excitement that the sudden drop afterwards is well nigh lethal.
As Anne Shirley once remarked,"when I think something nice is going to happen I seem to fly right up on the wings of anticipation; and then the first thing I realize I drop down to earth with a thud. But really, Marilla, the flying part is glorious as long as it lasts...it's like soaring through a sunset. I think it almost pays for the thud."
Almost pays for the thud, almost, should we then not celebrate, that we might escape the gaping chasm of emptiness thereafter. Some ascetics might certainly agree with that logic, but you can't live like that, man is too giddy a creature to live long in despair. There must be some middle ground between 'eat, drink, and be merry for tomorrow we die,' and walking through life as if the whole thing were naught but a funeral procession. Perhaps the ancient church had it right with its combination of fasts and feast days, alternating celebration with contemplation, mourning and merriment, echoing the seasons of life that bring pain and joy alternatively. Winter and Summer, Spring and Fall, birth and death, young and old...world without end. But this world will end, that is what we must remember; both the good and the bad will one day come to an end.
No matter what worldview, religion, or ideology you cling to, the world will end. The staunch materialist will die and the sun grow cold. The pantheist may yearn for everything to become nothing or everything to become one thing. The deist expects a day when the tale of the world will end and he must face the Author at last. Or some variation thereof, but we all agree that the world as we know it, our lives in particular, cannot go on forever as we know them; they will either end permanently or be vastly changed. The materialist can do naught but make the best of the days allotted to him, for the long years of eternity to him are cold and lonely indeed. The pantheist, depending on his ideology, may cease to exist as the best alternative or hopes to join the epic dance of existence as something other than himself. The deist must depend upon his God's mercy and grace for whatever is to come when the music stops at last. None of those, save perhaps the last, sounds very inviting, intriguing, or welcome, and the last certainly depends upon the God, the materialist might be the happiest if He turns out to be capricious, weak, vengeful, or otherwise untrustworthy to we poor mortals.
Ash Wednesday has come and gone, reminding us that we are dust and to dust we shall return. Good Friday looms upon the horizon, the anniversary of when the world itself grew black with despair that God could die. But then there is Easter, when God lived and death died. And Advent, when we look forward to the coming of the God who was Man. And Christmas, that mystery we still cannot fathom, even two millennia later, what does it mean that the Word became Flesh and dwelt among us? For now our Joy is tainted with Sorrow, the specter of the fasts looms over our feasts; our mortal flesh quakes to know that death creeps ever closer. The party will end, be it our lives or our world, and what a mess and disappointment that shall be, unless there is some grander reality beyond this one. This is but the groom's dinner: a paltry little gala the night before the wedding, a mere rehearsal for the 'big day.'
That is why Paul can call everything that has been thrown at him: hunger, cold, loneliness, frustration, shipwreck, stoning, threats of death, imprisonment, and worse, he calls it all 'light and momentary afflictions' and then has the gall to say that it is in fact gaining for us an 'eternal weight of glory beyond all comparison.' Either the guy is nuts or he knows something we do not, and my money is most definitely on the latter. But it is very hard to wait. We wait and wait for our earthly celebrations, they take forever to come but are over too soon, leaving us empty and tired and bored. But not this Party. Yes, we wait and wait, we've been waiting since Eve was promised one of her offspring would trod upon the serpent's head, but this is a party that won't ever end. There will be no disappointment the day after, for there won't be a day after, it will just keep getting better and better, forever and ever. And it won't be one of those horrid parties where you don't know anybody or you're tired or have a headache or the music is too loud or you ate too much and have a stomach ache or you have to go but would rather be anywhere else...it isn't even like the best party or celebration you've ever attended, in fact, it is so wonderful that 'no eye has seen, nor ear has heard, nor has it entered into the mind of man.'
And the best part is: everybody is invited. Just remember to RSVP!
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