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Speaker: Jerry Cisar

Julia Buckley writes about one of the greatest disappointments in her life:

“They’re here!” called one of our group, as everyone scrambled to put on snow boots, four extra layers and grab cameras…. Our host slammed his laptop shut, [rushing] us out of the door. ‘She is here,’ he said to us with Confucian wisdom, leading us round the side of his house. ‘Aurora.’
“We looked up. My neighbor gasped and started clicking away on his camera. ‘Whoah,’ said one of two… enthusiastic Americans. I gasped too. Because the sight I’d waited a lifetime to see was in front of me – the elusive Northern Lights had unveiled themselves a mere 30 minutes after my arrival – and all I could see was a grey streak, arcing across the sky. It wasn’t green. It wasn’t purple. It wasn’t dancing, or prancing. For my birthday, I had travelled 2,200 miles to see what looked uncannily like a low-flying plane’s vapour trail. I’ve known disappointment in my life.
I’ve known disappointment in my travels, too. But nothing has disappointed me quite like the Northern Lights.

Julia Buckley was greatly disappointed because the reality didn’t live up to the fanfare. Not that it never would have, but it didn’t that day.

Many Jews who had waited a lifetime in hopes of seeing the Messiah, the new age, the dawning light of new creation, what they saw might have felt a bit more like “a grey streak, arcing across the sky. It wasn’t green. It wasn’t purple. It wasn’t dancing, or prancing.” Have you been disappointed with the new creation? Do others look at the church with disappointment?

Handout: http://media.gccc.net/2020/09/20200920.pdf