Bones

How can a two-hour worship service be so satisfying?
After a not-so-great night—my Suez Canal a bit rumbly—I dressed my best and ambled to the Chapel just before 9. It is the Lord’s Day.
It all begins with a song or two, followed by an exposition of Psalm 122. That psalm is one of fifteen Songs of Ascent, probably used on pilgrimage to Jerusalem by Israelites going up for the annual festival. It speaks of their delight in God, thanking God for the privilege of being in his presence. Our leader exhorts us with excitement to let our joy be known. To let our thankful hearts overflow.
Next the music team comes to the high platform behind the pulpit stage. I recognize the leader as one of my students. He has some Asian features to his face, and a huge smile. For 30 minutes we segue through songs in English and Hindi, contemplative and exuberant. Saving my strength I am sitting, but he soon has the congregation on their feet, expressing their joy. Then it calms down to more introspective tones.
Following this the leader asks for people to stand and say their testimony or prayer requests. Two gophers with wireless mics get to those who speak one after the other so there is no awkward waiting between. Requests for ailing parents, for one who met with a car accident, and thanks for the girls who were stricken with food poisoning two nights ago and are doing OK now. Soon a brother in the congregation is requested to offer the prayer, which he does in Hindi.
Next it’s the offering. The “plates” are actually stainless rods about two feet in length with red velvet pouches on the end—like the ones we have in our antique collection, not used in over a hundred years.
Children are dismissed to kid’s church. And I am in the pulpit. It’s 10:15. We have already been in God’s presence over an hour. My message will be 25 minutes. But with the translator it will use up more than double that time.
I had selected the theme of bones—something I had never thought of preaching on.
But bones in the Bible are significant. We know our bones will outlast any other remnants of our bodies. And we want them to be placed respectfully in an appropriate place. We are people of a particular time and place. Ruth told Naomi, “where you are buried, there will I be buried,” when she chose another people as her own. Joseph, though he lived over 100 years in Egypt, insisted his bones be brought back to the land of his people. He may have lived in Egypt but Egypt was never his home. Do we resonate with that?
Jesus took on the flesh and bone of Mary, even though his home was in another world. Yet he came to unite us with himself. After the resurrection he assured his disciples he was not an apparition: “see, a ghost does not have flesh and bone as you see I do.” As we become part of His Body we no longer belong to this world. We insist that on the Great Day our bones be brought to our new homeland. As Hebrews puts it, they could have returned whence they came but they sought a better homeland—a heavenly one.
The first mention of bones in Scripture is in Genesis 2. After the Creator anesthetizes Adam, he makes Eve out of the same DNA. “This is great – she is bone of my bones and flesh of my flesh.”
Adam went into the darkness of a deep sleep and came out with a bride!
Jesus went down into the darkness of tomb and came out with His bride—the bride of Christ.
I Corinthians 15 describes this in some detail. We shall all be changed. But we’ll still have flesh and bones, now glorified, grafted to our Lord himself. And of course Jesus, according the remarkably inspired Psalm 22, was poured out like water, tongue sticking to the roof of his mouth, able to count all his wasted bones while others mocked and gambled for his stuff. Yet not a bone of his was broken, despite the fact that Roman soldiers routinely broke legs to hasten death. He made the ultimate sacrifice. Therefore God exalts him above every name, and we get to sit alongside on the throne he alone deserves. He will not forget his bride, the church.
Just as a band of brothers in a military unit, no matter how fierce the battle, promises to leave no man behind, so our Commander in Heaven leaves no one behind.
Bones and all, we shall be forever with the Lord in the new heaven and the new earth.
I give a benediction. The gathering begins to slip quietly away—another Lord’s Day done—spent in the sweet presence of the One who loved us and gave himself for us.
So here I am now, in Uncle George’s house, having been able to eat a modest lunch of rice and veggies. I sit in the sun in my T-shirt with one of his devotional books. I seldom enjoy such long periods of solitude—many hours at a stretch. It’s a beneficial change from the frenzy that life is at home.
Workmen are here working on the walls, digging a trench with pick and adze. For Hindus this is just another day to do another day’s work. Very little machine work here. More laborers are in demand and more mouths fed by hand labor. The clink and clang of their tools, along with leaves falling from the thirsty trees, provides a pleasant patina for meditation.
While this is no Egypt, I am not truly at home here in India in the final sense. I say to myself— “when God sends you aid, take these bones back whence they came.”
In New England I was born, there shall I be buried—awaiting the trumpet call for the final leg of our journey together.