The 55th Superbowl was played last night. As we discussed the “big game”, I recalled how I used to want to watch the game. Then for a brief point in time (part of one day), I wanted to hear the commercials. I found that I could not watch the game at a party talking to people. I also found I could not hear the commercials with other people talking at a party. Since I now dislike NFL football and television, I can go to a Superbowl party and just enjoy myself. Probably something others learn at a younger age.
The lowlight of the party was forgetting my wallet and sunglasses. The highlight was getting to bed on time. Not really, the highlight was talking to the people I knew that were there. I was really pleased with the dynamics of the party and aside from running out of room in my stomach, it was wonderful.
The trouble in our country that sets the media agenda every day is important and all that, but people have enjoyed sitting around eating and talking as long as there have been people, and I think it will be that way after whatever horror befalls us short of Christ’s return. Whether one can buy electric cars with fake money or find gas to drive an old classic, people will still need to eat and still want to talk.
The third verse of poetry in Job digs further into the vision of negativity he wants for the day of his birth.
May darkness, Death’s shadow, reclaim it,
May a pall lie over it,
May the blackened day terrify it.
Job continues with the allusion that darkness is aligned with the chaos before creation, before light, before form. He also ties this into the equally negative perspective of time after death. That this darkness from before creation is only a shadow of the lack of light to come after death. I do not know many people who have not at least run across this darkness beyond death, but I have run across a new way to think about it lately.
During our bible study, I asked the guys how they would respond to someone asking about explaining what happens to someone who dies before ever having the chance to learn about and accept Jesus Christ. I am still working on how I would do so, but I read that the common spiritual condition after death is a form of sleep where the soul experiences nothing from death until Christ’s return it will be for them as if it were instantaneous. (Yes, something like the operating of time in the quantum realm being different like in the End Game movie.) Interestingly enough, the biggest arguments I found on the topic were about placement of commas. Since Hebrew and Greek were written without commas, we can assume that arguments over the placement of commas are missing the point.
I see this sleep of death as not the same as the darkness after death and assume the darkness after death is really after judgement and not having one’s name in the book of life. The darkness is scary. The darkness Job discusses is not quite that bad. He wanted the day of his birth reclaimed by the darkness of chaos, as if the blanket of darkness is covering it preventing light from getting through, and that it is so scary that even the day is scared of itself. I recall the movie based on a short story of a civilization tearing itself apart when the planets two suns cannot be seen because of an eclipse. It was their first experience of night and it scared most of them to death. That is what I call fun with science fiction.
One of the features of the human mind are its ability to forget. Mine is pretty forgetful, but I chalk it off as a made that way error rather than a sign of things getting worse. I knew someone who had memory issues that were a downward spiral. They started taking steps to make each subsequent day a little less terrible. I have had things that I wanted to learn and not have to keep reminding myself of in order to make use of them. I do not really want to make a list that I review every morning to make sure I know the best ways to have a great day. But as I ponder the anguish Job experienced and his response to it, I wonder if I should not be actively putting better things on a list each day and focusing only on them and ignore those things that do not make the list. I do not want to be a robot following a program. I want to be a person following the call of my Lord, prepared to do the unexpected. I want to do the expected, but not at the cost of living. Each day that is not as dark as the shadow of death is one that I can live in and rejoice in. So maybe the Superbowl was not a great game, down to the wire in uncertainty. But I had a great time with my friends and the commonality we have in sharing a Savior.