The Promise of Summer
“See, I am coming soon; my reward is with me, to repay according to everyone’s work. I am the Alpha and the Omega, the first and the last, the beginning and the end.”
Revelation 22:12-13
I confess, I am not really happy with the way most schools make their decisions these days. Don’t get ahead of me – I am not talking about COVID-response! No, I am talking about the shortening of summer.
I am nearly 60, and when I was a youngster, school ended around Memorial Day and did not reboot until after Labor Day! It provided a good long rest for students and teachers. For many summers, I went off to summer camp for a month, had a ball, and could still enjoy a full summer both before and after camp.
Not so these days. I know there are many reasons for that. Our own Preschool is back at it! There’s just a part of me that wishes for the “good old days” when it comes to school calendars. To be frank, there’s a lot in me that wishes for the good old days about lots of things, and I’ve had to move my compass needle to embrace what is likely forever changed.
Nevertheless, summer is ending, and my question for you for this little “Daily Word” is simply, “How will you carry your summer with you?” What I am asking is, however you spent the more leisurely days of summer, what will you carry with you into the autumn as summer wanes?
The whole of the Christian faith strains towards an ending that is a beginning. There is much that is difficult to understand in the grand revelation that was given to the Apostle John on the Island of Patmos, but there is no doubt about the words above – God is the beginning and the end; and for God’s children, He is their beginning and their end. And at that end, God is their beginning again. What does that mean?
The promise of our faith is that with all things, God has the last word. The penultimate moment of our faith was not Jesus left on a cross, but Jesus rising from the grave – The Resurrection. I recently came across these words by Parker Palmer:
“Summer is the season when all the promissory notes of autumn and winter and spring come due, and each year the debts are paid and repaid with compound interest. In summer, it is hard to remember that we had ever doubted the natural process, had ever ceded death the last word, had ever lost faith in the powers of new life. Summer is a reminder that our faith is not nearly as strong as the things we profess to have faith in – a reminder that for this single season, at least, we might cease our anxious machinations and give ourselves to the abiding and abundant grace of our common life.”[1]
Summer is indeed a faithful friend in reminding us, as John Claypool used to say, the “last things are not the worst things.” Summer will give way to fall, fall to winter, but after winter, spring and then summer comes again – a cyclical and visible metaphor for the promises of Christ Jesus.
This means, of course, that for those who have embraced our Lord, the words, “The End,” never roll across the screen. Troubles and trials may beset us, but our God is bigger. This means, quite practically, that love lost does not mean the end of love; job loss does not mean the end of opportunity; disease and illness can be transformed to health; and even death, in God’s hands, can be transformed into life eternal.
What if we could carry the promise of summer with us, not just for a season, but also year-round? What if we had eyes of faith such that, as we lived in this life, we were defined by another? What if we, to put it more bluntly, lived in a heavenly way? This is at least one manifestation of what Jesus called “abundant life.”[2] It is living in such a way that one knows there is more to life than what meets the eye, brushes the ear, bruises the heart or lifts the spirit. It is living with the knowledge that all things find their perfect end beyond the grave. In the meantime, we get whispers of it in this life.
I like the way C.S. Lewis put it in a sermon he preached entitled, The Weight of Glory:
“At present we are on the outside of the world, the wrong side of the door. We discern the freshness and purity of morning, but they do not make us fresh and pure. We cannot mingle with the splendours we see. But all the leaves of the New Testament are rustling with the rumor that it will not always be so. Someday, God willing we shall get in....When all the suns and nebulae have passed away, each one of you will still be alive...”[3]
Summer moments can be found in so many ways – whether a long, awaited vacation, a quiet morning with a cup of coffee and your prayers, losing yourself in a good joke, a deep cry or a restful night’s sleep.
We followers of Jesus believe our life in Christ is an endless summer that lifts us more when we are already light of heart or buoys us up when we are weighed down. More importantly – most importantly – we believe our summer moments here with Him prepare us for a life where summer never ends. We can pray with John Wesley, “...Teach us, O Lord, to use this transitory life as pilgrims returning to their beloved home...”
“Our beloved, home...” Hold onto the promise of that home; do not release its hope as the seasons change because they will, you know, and whether it is blazing sun or blistering cold that greets you, Christ will see you through. Indeed, let our lives proclaim, “Come, Lord Jesus!”[4]
As we come to summer’s end, how can you more fully live in a summerly way? An abundant way? A heavenly way? In other words, how will you carry your summer with you?
A Prayer
Love Divine, all loves excelling,
joy of heaven to earth come down,
fix in us thy humble swelling,
all thy faithful mercies crown.
Jesus, thou are all compassion,
pure unbounded love thou art;
visit us with thy salvation,
enter every trembling heart.
Come, almighty to deliver,
let us all they life receive;
suddenly return, and never,
never more thy temples leave.
Thee we would be always blessing,
serve thee as they host above,
pray, and praise thee without ceasing,
glory in thy perfect love.
Finish then thy new creation;
pure and spotless let us be;
let us see thy great salvation
perfectly restored in thee:
Changed from glory into glory,
till in heaven we take our place,
till we cast our crowns before thee,
lost in wonder, love, and praise.
Amen.
“Love Divine”
Charles Wesley d. 1788.[5]
[1] Palmer, Let Your Life, p. 109.
[2] See John 10:10.
[3] C.S. Lewis, The Weight of Glory (New York: MacMillan, 1980), p. 17.
[4] Revelation 22:20.
[5] “Love Divine,” The Hymnal 1982 (New York: The Church Hymnal Corporation, 1982), 657.
