On the edge

Michaelmas 2008
(Genesis 28: 10-17; Ps 103: 19-22; Rev 12: 7-12; John 1: 47-51)


If you’re “on the edge”, you have an angel close at hand.

Jacob was on the edge. Jacob was on the run from his brother, who wanted to kill him. Jacob may have figured he had it coming—Jake had just scammed his brother and fooled his blind, dying father into giving Jake the whole inheritance. Jake was scared, alone, and on the run, feeling bad about himself if he had any conscience left at all. He’s alone in the desert, heading towards family he hadn’t even met. Bandits or wolves could have easily finished him off. On the borderland between broken past and hopeless future, Jacob’s a man on the edge.

But on the edge is where you can meet angels.

God is on the edge. The God of the Bible often can’t be heard when things are secure and settled. On the edge is where you may meet God.

On the edge, God speaks and nothing is the same again.

When God speaks, we learn that the nameless piece of ground on which we stand—desert sand, a lonely house, a car in traffic, a bus gazing out the window, the eyes of a stranger, the deafening silence of our heart—is the house of God. And there God gives a promise where there was no hope—we are heard, we are seen, and in ways we cannot imagine the promise of God is working in our lives. God is with us, God will not leave us, until every astounding promise has been fulfilled.

Jake wakes up, wakes from his hopeless sleep. Awe, and wonder, and even fear—his hopeless little life is not so little. His life is part of something grand in the heart and mind of a grant God. When we learn that, we have truly woken up.

That’s where we see the angels. The angels wake us from our hopeless, visionless sleep, and teach us about the holy ground which is our lives, which is our world. They see and they hear. They live with God and for God. They share our road as we seek to live with God and for God.

This is the season of the angels. This is the feast and this the season where we remember, with awe and wonder and gratitude, that we are not alone, that our lives are not little and pointless, that we are known and heard and seen and loved and that those wonderful promises—power from on high, participation in God’s own life, transformation, eternal life, dying and rising—are all ours, ours for the taking. They see, they listen, and they even struggle with us and for us in our struggle, as stupendous Michael went hand-to-hand with Lucifer the Morning Star before the dawn of time. And they wake us up, they open our eyes to the truth of our lives.

Nathaniel in the Gospel was on the edge, and he didn’t even know it. He was a seeker who didn’t think he’d find anything worthwhile. When have we given up seeking the deepest desire of our hearts? But the day that started so ordinary ends in wonders. Cynically Nathaniel agrees to see the rabbi who can’t be anyone worth seeing. But he finds more than he could have imagined. He finds one who sees and hears him even before Nathaniel knew he was even searching. He finds one in who’s eyes and presence are somehow all wonders. He finds one who speaks of the angels. Here I am. I’m the holy ground. I’m the voice and the promise. See me, hear me, share my life, and your life will be holy ground as well.

Have you ever been on the edge? Are you on the edge now? Is anyone you know on the edge? It may not be a dead end or a jump into nothing. It may be holy ground. You may see angels. You may see God. And you will learn that you are seen, you are heard, and you were never alone. You may want peace. But you may be given far more—new hope, new and transformed life.