FROM OUT THE BOUNDLESS DEEP

 

To gain a further understanding of the meditation that follows, a reading of the suggested scriptures will be most helpful. The Editorial Notes at the end of the post may prove to be beneficial)
Suggested Reading: John 21: 1 – 25; 1 Peter 1: 3 – 13

“1 Peter 1:13
Therefore, with minds that are alert and fully sober, set your hope on the grace to be brought to you when Jesus Christ is revealed at his coming.” (1)

Crossing the Bar
Sunset and evening star,
And one clear call for me!
And may there be no moaning of the bar,
When I put out to sea,

But such a tide as moving seems asleep,
Too full for sound and foam,
When that which drew from out the boundless deep
Turns again home.

Twilight and evening bell,
And after that the dark!
And may there be no sadness of farewell,
When I embark;

For tho‘ from out our bourne of Time and Place
The flood may bear me far,
I hope to see my Pilot face to face
When I have crost the bar. (2)

Alfred Lord Tennyson uses the inevitable occurrence of day’s surrender to evening, as the parallel for our passing from life to death. His masterful use of the simple, captivating images of’sunset, and evening star” are enough to make clear an invitation to consider the exquisite beauty inherent in a day’s ending. Beyond the need for human intervention, the magnificent pageant unfolds. The darkness gathers, and the stars begin to appear in the heavens. For Tennyson, the attractive beauty of the days ending is a veiled invitation to consider the inevitability of the passing of this life into death. He hints that it is possible to experience a more exquisite satisfaction, personal fulfillment, and contentment in that final twilight than is possible in viewing thousands of sunsets.
We are living in a society where it is not fashionable, nor is it desirable to talk about the end of our days.There is too much of the day still beckoning to us to bother with reading any further in Tennyson’s poem about, “Sunsets and evening stars.”

In truth, however, Tennyson awakens a curiosity in each of us that is hard to ignore. Circumvent it as we may, when all is said and done, we each nurture a hope to leave behind us at the last, a legacy of accomplished dreams and an example of a positive influence.Tennyson induces an appetite to investigate how one can come to life’s end so filled with the meaning and the purpose of life, now complete, as to know no regrets or uncertainties.
More specifically he prompts the consideration, of where to gather the materials for building such a daily life?

Drawing upon the poetic imagery of Tennyson’s
” Crossing The Bar,” I dream of a small town which is girdled about with hills, except for the one quarter that opens out to the sea. It is the place of my birth.
In the very center of that town, there is a quiet, placid pond into which three rivers flow. In the winter the pond was the location of choice for many a “highly professional ” hockey game or even more importantly, as the romantic point of rendezvous for moonstruck skaters. In the summer it was the perfect place for our home-made tall ships to set their card-board sails, and head for the opposite shore. The most striking feature about the pond, however, is where it narrows to enter the sea. Many of the local town’s people refer to the wooden bridge spanning that opening and the narrow opening itself as” the bar.” At low tide, the little pond empties itself with gurgling sounds, into the waiting sea. But then at high tide, the pond ‘draws from out the boundless deep’ of the mighty ocean, to supply every cranny and cove. Many times I have stood at the bar watching the tide come in. It came rushing in with an  eerie silence, “too full for sound or foam.”

Tennyson captures the fullness of the eternal hope in the semblance of the rising tide! Peter endorses that same hope for the human race: ” set your hope fully on the grace to be given you when Jesus Christ is revealed.”
1 Peter 1:13.
Peter makes it abundantly clear that it is Jesus who comes to us in the ebb and flow of our God consciousness in life. Jesus shows each one of us that God’s love is always at high tide level, and is forever seeking the backwaters of individual lives that need an infusing of new life.

And who better than Peter to give living testimony of that? There was a time when Peter’s life was fraught with low tide experiences. Rocks and shoals were threatening on every side. Gross mediocrity and shameful memories were chasing every promising star to its setting. At last, they demand a retreat:” I am going back to the fishing ground,” Peter announces.Thus, he proposes to close the book of high adventure, he was writing before Jesus’ crucifixion. Then the very next morning the tide sweeps in, and Peter meets “the Pilot” face to face.” At that moment Peter’s all-consuming ministry begins anew. Drawing upon his experience of the Risen Christ, Peter, with absolute confidence, advises all to set there hope on Christ. Then when the flood tide ushers them back to the waiting boundless deep even there, they will meet the Pilot face to face. Let Tennyson, who lives nearly 2000 years later than Peter relay to us how he lives by that same hope.

“Twilight and evening bell,
And after that the dark!
And may there be no sadness of farewell,
When I embark;

For though from out our bourne of Time and Place
The flood may bear me far,
I hope to see my Pilot face to face
When I have crost the bar.”(2)

A PRAYER TO FOLLOW THIS MEDITATION

Dear God, thank You for creating us with the spirit that liberates us from the confining prison walls of our bodies.
Our spirits can travel far when conditions or circumstances make it impossible for our bodies to accompany us; and the barriers of time’s measurement, such as yesterdays, and past years and decades may be melted into the present. Thank You for the liberating freedom of our spirits.
Thank You for an even more excellent gift of the spirit; the ability to be able to transcend the barrier between life and death. The ability, through our spirits, to experience traffic between heaven and earth here and now, like Jacob, on the ladder that reached from earth to heaven.Thank You for the greatest gift of all, the One who is our only spiritual liberator.Thank You for Jesus, who is the Saviour and Keeper of our spirits. May we see Him ‘face to face’ now and evermore. Amen

Hymn:   Jesus Saviour, Pilot Me

https://youtu.be/m8-9Bg9ZXtU

 

 

EDITORIAL NOTES
1. Here and throughout the text of this meditation, the quotations from the Holy Bible are from the New International Translation, Unless otherwise noted in the text.

2.Alfred Lord Tennyson. “Crossing The Bar”
https://www.poemhunter.com/poem/crossing-the-bar-2/

3. Hymn: Jesus, Saviour, Pilot Me                                                                                   https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=vo5qEkZHXUg&feature=youtu.be

4. Photo: https://www.flickr.com/photos/deanspic/2571459575           Brigus,  Newfoundland,  on the website, “Brigus FolksThen And    Now.” This is the area known to me as “The Bar”