The Perfect Storm
Sep 1 2023 - Eric Buresh
I’ve had an image bouncing around in my mind the last few weeks that has been helpful and fills me with joy when I think about it. I’m going to share it but let me first say that while the image is drawn from Biblical concepts, it is not an image or metaphor that is itself found in the Bible. The way my mind works, when I’m thinking about something that is hard to understand, I start creating mental images that help my mind process. But they are just aids, and there are limits to their accuracy. So, that’s the caveat.
The text that got this started is Jesus’s High Priestly Prayer in John 17, specifically versus 21-23: “that they all may be one, as You, Father, are in Me, and I in You; that they also may be one in Us, that the world may believe that You sent Me. And the glory which You gave Me I have given them, that they may be one just as We are one: I in them, and You in Me; that they may be made perfect in one.” Add to this the doctrine of the trinity – that God is one and the One is three distinct persons in perfect unity. Brought together, we see that Christ has given us the right to be part of that trinitarian oneness, not gods as created beings, but unified with God as His creation.
In my mind’s eye, I go back before the beginning of time, and I see the three persons of God swirling like an infinite tornado where the wind is the circulation of love, joy, utter delight, even amazement in the perfection and power of the other persons. There is no pride in this swirl, no jealousy, only delight. It cannot be any more powerful, yet the vortex seems to eternally grow as the perfect harmony of the three-in-One overflows. Glory! In the eye of the vortex, there is beautiful light, stillness, peace. Recall the scene from Twister when the two lead characters are holding on by a rope inside the eye of a monster tornado and experience the surreal peace. More glory! Outside the vortex, though, the storm wreaks infinite destruction. This too is glory. It is a good thing to be in unity with this perfect storm.
God created us in His image as beings that could appreciate and share in the powerful experience of this vortex, and He invites us to become part of the vortex – to exist as one with Him and all our brothers and sisters in the glorious eye of this perfect storm. To experience perfect, untainted, unselfish love, joy, amazement, and peace. He knew we would never, in our own right, be like Him in perfection. He also knew He could not bring our non-unity into His unity without destroying that eternally perfect unity. So, God (in Christ) took on flesh, bought our unity with His death, and gave it to us as a gift. We will someday be like Christ, and we will join the vortex of God’s perfect vortex to rest peacefully in the eye, enjoying infinite love, joy, delight, and perpetual amazement. We’re not there yet, but soon!
As Paul says in Philip. 3:12-14: “Not that I have already attained, or am already perfected; but I press on, that I may lay hold of that for which Christ Jesus has also laid hold of me. Brethren, I do not count myself to have apprehended; but one thing I do, forgetting those things which are behind and reaching forward to those things which are ahead, I press toward the goal for the prize of the upward call of God in Christ Jesus.”
That’s my picture of the prize, the upward call. I know it’s not a perfect picture; the reality of God’s presence is, I’m sure, beyond my or anyone else’s ability to describe. But even this unquestionably inadequate picture is enough to keep me pressing on!