What Is the Matter

Dying things and dying people,
Passing seasons, passing years,
Ebbing tides and ebbing powers,
Falling empires, falling tears...

Leaving friends and leaving dwellings,
Flagging hopes and flagging joys,
Caving buildings, caving virtues,
Hopeless ventures, hopeless ploys...

I have often felt abandoned,
Left behind by life’s advance--
Relegated to the quagmire
Of a cosmos run by chance...

You are not alone in searching
For the hidden face of God
As you peer into the blackness
Of the soul and sky and sod...

Death of morning, death of meaning,
Death of fruit and flow’r and seed,
Death of wishing or desiring,
Death of all-consuming need...

Could it be I could not face it,
Nor could you, while drawing breath,
Face what truly, finally matters,
Were it not for death--sweet death?


MNA 3/12/15

Unburied Treasure

“Lay up for yourselves treasure in heaven, 

where neither moth nor rust corrupt, and thieves do not break in and steal...

for where your treasure is, there will your heart be also.” 

(Matthew 6:20-21)

Bilbo Baggins the hobbit gazed down miserably from Ravenhill, into the valley between two great arms of the Lonely Mountain. There before him a vicious battle was raging, pitting dwarves, elves and men against a ghastly host of goblins and their allies, the evil wargs.

His adventure had come to an end. Chosen by Gandalf the wizard and Thorin the dwarf-lord as the “burglar” who would spy out the dark passages of the Mountain and venture into the fearsome lair of the wicked dragon, Smaug, Bilbo, with the aid of a magical ring, had amply fulfilled his contract. He had rescued Thorin and his twelve companions several times during their journey, had played a key role in discovering the way into the mountain halls, and had even reported Smaug’s weak spot so that the mighty bowman Bard was able to shoot down the dragon in its flight with his final arrow! For these remarkable services, the tiny hobbit had been promised one fourteenth share of the dragon’s stolen and hoarded treasure.

But now, what had seemed like a tremendous victory was turning into a calamity greater than the death and destruction dealt out by the dragon himself. This Battle of the Five Armies was the direct result of the news that Smaug’s golden hoard was no longer guarded by the monster, and Thorin, heir of the dwarf-kings of old, was unwilling to divide his treasure with other races, even when their claims seemed valid.

In J.R.R. Tolkien’s Middle-earth, dwarves were described as expert miners, smiths and craftsmen, digging, delving and building vast underground cities. Beneath the earth they sought out the natural treasuries of iron, copper, silver, gold and gems, which they fashioned into works of inexpressible beauty. With so much hard work invested in their treasures, it is easy to see why it filled Thorin’s heart with such hot desire, and made him willing to guard it with his own life, as well as the lives of his companions.

But later, at the side of Thorin’s death-bed, Bilbo would hear words of repentance from the lips of this proud King Under the Mountain. The hobbit cared little for the glitter of trinkets or the light of jewels...he had repeatedly longed only to return safely to his comfortable home under the Hill back in the Shire, with or without his fourteenth share of dragon-treasure. Thorin praised these simple desires in the end, confessing that if more people desired such things above the lust for gold and other riches, the world would be a merrier place.

Tolkien then put even more telling words into Thorin’s mouth as he was dying. He told Bilbo that he was about to go to sit among his ancestors and wait with them, “until the world is renewed.” What a poignant reminder that this world--Middle-earth or our own world--is not our final dwelling place. Nothing here that we value so highly is of permanent value; all will pass away. I might dig and dig for an entire lifetime, unearthing mineral riches that will satisfy even a dragon’s lust for treasure. It will vanish in the end. The Creator of heaven and earth, who spoke this universe into being, will just as easily speak it back into nothingness.

What will endure beyond the world’s renewal are the lives of the people around us. Contrary to the naturalistic fatalism of our times, physical death is not the end. None of us faces oblivion when he or she passes out of this world. Solomon said in the book of Ecclesiastes that God has placed eternity in the heart of man. We instinctively know that we are destined for an eternal, unending existence. Here, on this planet, we value things for their beauty, their splendor and craftsmanship, the passing pleasure they give...and, most of all, their “permanence.” But we know down deep that this permanence is not truly permanent, after all. You and I will outlast these things we cherish so highly. We will enter eternity someday and face our Creator. And he will either hail us as his beloved children, or judge and banish us as his bitter enemies.

Earthly treasures will not comfort us on that day. Fortunes we have amassed on planet earth will be left behind. Power, prestige, possessions and all our noble plans for the future will be stripped away. All that will matter is the treasure of knowing Jesus Christ.

How can I obtain this Person? This priceless treasure? Not by paying for it. Not by earning or deserving it. Jesus gives Himself to me freely as my Savior and King. I must merely reach out empty hands of faith and receive Him.

All during his adventurous travels, Bilbo Baggins kept longing for home. That is where his chief treasure lay. He eventually made it back there in one piece.

By God’s grace, may you and I do the same--and may your Treasure be waiting there to welcome you.