Sunday, August 8, 2010

The "next to the last truth"

"Faith" by Andrea di Niccolo

The Epistle reading this morning is that amazing essay on faith in the eleventh chapter of Hebrews. Here is a brief commentary on that passage:

By faith we understand, if we are to understand it at all, that the madness and lostness we see all around us and within us are not the last truth about the world but only the next to the last truth….Faith is the eye of the heart, and by faith we see deep down beneath the face of things – by faith we struggle against all odds to be able to see – that the world is God's creation even so. It is he who made us and not we ourselves, made us out of his peace to live in peace, out of his light to dwell in light, out of his love to be above all things loved and loving. That is the last truth about the world.

-- Frederick Buechner

It is very consoling to consider that the madness and lostness we experience are not, in fact, the last truth after all.
~~~

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