March 5: “The Son of Man Will Come with Power and Great Glory”
♫ Music:
Day 17 - Friday, March 5
Title: “THE SON OF MAN WILL COME WITH POWER AND GREAT GLORY”
Scripture: Matthew 24:21-22,27-31;42-44
“For then there will be a great tribulation, such as has not occurred since the beginning of the world until now, nor ever will. Unless those days had been cut short, no life would have been saved; but for the sake of the elect those days will be cut short. For just as the lightning comes from the east and flashes even to the west, so will the coming of the Son of Man be. Wherever the corpse is, there the vultures will gather. But immediately after the tribulation of those days the sun will be darkened, and the moon will not give its light, and the stars will fall from the sky, and the powers of the heavens will be shaken. And then the sign of the Son of Man will appear in the sky, and then all the tribes of the earth will mourn, and they will see the Son of Man coming on the clouds of the sky with power and great glory. And He will send forth His angels with a great trumpet and they will gather together His elect from the four winds, from one end of the sky to the other. Therefore be on the alert, for you do not know which day your Lord is coming. But be sure of this, that if the head of the house had known at what time of the night the thief was coming, he would have been on the alert and would not have allowed his house to be broken into. For this reason you also must be ready; for the Son of Man is coming at an hour when you do not think He will.”
Poetry:
After the Diagnosis
by Christian Wiman
No remembering now
when the apple sapling was blown
almost out of the ground.
No telling how,
with all the other trees around,
it alone was struck.
It must have been luck,
he thought for years, so close
to the house it grew.
It must have been night.
Change is a thing one sleeps through
when young, and he was young.
If there was a weakness in the earth,
a give he went down on his knees
to find and feel the limits of,
there is no longer.
If there was one random blow from above
the way he's come to know
from years in this place,
the roots were stronger.
Whatever the case,
he has watched this tree survive
wind ripping at his roof for nights
on end, heats and blights
that left little else alive.
No remembering now...
A day's changes mean all to him
and all days come down
to one clear pane
through which he sees
among all the other trees
this leaning, clenched, unyielding one
that seems cast
in the form of a blast
that would have killed it,
as if something at the heart of things,
and with the heart of things,
had willed it.
THE SON OF MAN WILL COME WITH POWER AND GREAT GLORY
The overlapping of ‘texts’ that shape our own apocalyptic imaginations of ‘the end’ are not only biblical but also cultural and personal. Chris Koelle’s art looks deeply scriptural but it is only derivatively so, inspired as it is by Johnny Cash’s song, “The Man Comes Around.” And that last piece of original songwriting by an American musical icon demonstrates the kind of contrition and awe that contemplating our Lord’s second coming invites. The pastiche qualities of these works, grabbing snippets, allusions and images from Jesus’s own word reminds us that we are always grasping after God’s revelation of his future purpose in faithfulness to Jesus rather than in certainty of the details. That is, imagining ‘the end’ is both a joyful hope and dangerous invitation in our Christian lives. Doing so through texts in Lenten devotion lends the imagination a chastening focus on the central historical event of Jesus’ incarnate life and death and resurrection – the ‘end/ultimate’ event and person around which and whom all of human history revolves, according to the Bible. Jesus is center stage of both picture and song, and self-referentially in his own words to his disciples in the gospel. Yet his adoption of the Danielic ‘Son of Man’ title sees the Son of God identify with human creatures who are to be the subjects of final judgment and inheritors of final rule ‘when the Man comes around’ (Daniel 7:13-14, 27; cf. Revelation 20:4-6). Human hope is bound up in Jesus’ assumption, suffering and redemption of our humanity. What a mercy then, that Jesus, knowing his path to death, grave, resurrection and ascension, ties his identity to the certain hope with uncertain timing of the cosmic shaking of the Day of the Lord.
Poet Christian Winman writes reflecting on the personal tragedy of receiving a rare cancer diagnosis. The cosmic judgment that upturns the earth is proleptically experienced in the world-changing challenges of individual bodily life turned dramatically toward death. You may relate his poem to your own struggles, or reflect on the impact of COVID-19 on communities around you. The poet notices what he has not hitherto: the disfigured sapling (apple trees bear calamitous weight in our wrongly configured but persistent imaginations of the Garden of Eden and the Fall), impacted by a ‘random blow’ of chance (by the ‘luck’ of a nocturnal, unobserved celestial sign- a lightning strike or divine smiting?) that has weathered life without note until a change of perspective alters the poet’s regard. From his withdrawn window pane, this stubborn ‘blasted’ sapling clings from its roots, amid ‘little else alive’, ‘as if something at the heart of things, and with the heart of things, had willed it.’
Jesus is at the heart of things, things confusing and confounding now, and things portentous and climatic in our future. He is so as one who has walked his own singular path of trial and tribulation to a death for his chosen ones. And this Lent as we accompany that journey toward death, even death on a cross, we do so as ones who live life one day at a time, ready to mourn at the state of the world when our king comes, the Son of Man who takes our humanity up in his path through death to glory.
Prayer:
Father God,
Where we need shocking into awe at the prospect of your coming soon, alarm us by your Spirit;
Where we need comfort that the path through the chaos and destruction of death is one you have walked ahead of us, give us your Spirit’s peace,
Where we need the focus to see the glorious hope of your coming swallowing up our vital yet feeble dreams and ambitions, by your Spirit, drive us to look to Jesus,
In whose name we ask, in your mercy, hear our prayer,
Amen.
Andy Draycott
Associate Professor of Theology and Christian Ethics
Talbot School of Theology
Biola University
For more information about the artwork, music, and poetry selected for this day, we have provided resources under the “About” tab located next to the “Devotional” tab.
About the Artwork:
The Man Comes Around
Chris Koelle
2017
Screen print
White ink on heavyweight 100 lb. French paper
17.5” x 25”
Artist Chris Koelle drew inspiration for his work from “The Man Comes Around,” the title track from Johnny Cash’s album American IV: The Man Comes Around (2002). It is one of the last songs Cash wrote before his death. Both sung and spoken, the song makes numerous biblical references, especially to the Book of Revelation. The musical portion of the song begins with Cash reciting that “the man” (Jesus Christ) will one day come to pass judgment. The song also alludes to the Parable of the Ten Virgins (Matt. 25:1–13) with a reference to the virgins’ preparation for the Second Coming of Christ.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Man_Comes_Around_(song)
About the Artist:
Chris Koelle is an American illustrator, printmaker, and designer. Koelle has created artwork and illustrations for dozens of books, graphic novels, and award-winning documentaries, including the Oscar-nominated Operation Homecoming: Writing the Wartime Experience, as well as numerous album-cover designs. Illustrated books include John Piper’s JOB, The History of Redemption and Bike Snob. His latest illustrated tour de force, The Book of Revelation graphic novel, was recently published by Zondervan. He lives in Greenville, SC, with his wife Annie and their two children.
www.chriskoelle.com
About the Music:
“The Man Comes Around” from the album American IV: The Man Comes Around
Lyrics:
And I heard, as it were, the noise of thunder
One of the four beasts saying,
‘Come and see.’ and I saw, and behold a white horse”
There’s a man goin’ ’round takin’ names
And he decides who to free and who to blame
Everybody won’t be treated all the same
There’ll be a golden ladder reachin’ down
When the man comes around
The hairs on your arm will stand up
At the terror in each sip and in each sup
Will you partake of that last offered cup
Or disappear into the potter’s ground?
When the man comes around
Hear the trumpets hear the pipers
One hundred million angels singin’
Multitudes are marchin’ to the big kettledrum
Voices callin’, voices cryin’
Some are born and some are dyin’
It’s alpha and omega’s kingdom come
And the whirlwind is in the thorn tree
The virgins are all trimming their wicks
The whirlwind is in the thorn tree
It’s hard for thee to kick against the pricks
Till armageddon no shalam, no shalom
Then the father hen will call his chickens home
The wise men will bow down before the throne
And at his feet they’ll cast their golden crowns
When the man comes around
Whoever is unjust let him be unjust still
Whoever is righteous let him be righteous still
Whoever is filthy let him be filthy still
Listen to the words long written down
When the man comes around
Hear the trumpets hear the pipers
One hundred million angels singin’
Multitudes are marchin’ to the big kettledrum
Voices callin’, voices cryin’
Some are born and some are dyin’
It’s alpha and omega’s kingdom come
And the whirlwind is in the thorn trees
The virgins are all trimming their wicks
The whirlwind is in the thorn trees
It’s hard for thee to kick against the pricks
In measured hundredweight and penny pound
When the man comes around
“And I heard a voice in the midst of the four beasts
And I looked, and behold a pale horse
And his name that sat on him was death, and hell followed with him”
About the Composer/Lyricist/Performer:
Johnny Cash (1932–2003) was an American singer-songwriter, guitarist, actor, and author. He is one of the best-selling music artists of all time, having sold more than 90 million records worldwide. Although primarily remembered as a country music icon, his genre-spanning songs and sound embraced rock and roll, rockabilly, blues, folk, and gospel. Cash was known for his deep, calm, bass-baritone voice, the distinctive sound of his Tennessee Three backing band, an increasingly humble demeanor, free prison concerts, and a trademark all-black stage wardrobe that earned him the nickname “The Man in Black.” Much of Cash’s music contained themes of sorrow, moral tribulation, and redemption, especially in the latter stages of his career. His signature songs include “I Walk the Line,” “Folsom Prison Blues,” “Ring of Fire,” “Get Rhythm,” and “Man in Black.” During the last stage of his career, Cash covered songs by several late twentieth-century rock artists, notably “Personal Jesus” by Depeche Mode.
https://www.johnnycash.com/
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Johnny_Cash
About the Poet:
Christian Wiman (b. 1966) is an American author, editor, and translator of eleven books including most recently Joy: 100 Poems. He graduated from Washington and Lee University in Lexington, Virginia, and has taught at Northwestern University, Stanford University, and Lynchburg College. Currently, he teaches literature and religion at Yale Divinity School and the Yale Institute of Sacred Music. Wiman has written for The New Yorker, The New York Times Book Review, The Atlantic, and numerous other publications. He is a former Guggenheim Fellow. Wiman explores themes of spiritual faith and doubt in his sparse, precise poems. Praising Wiman’s “ear for silence” in a book review of Every Riven Thing, poet John Poch observed, “Repeatedly in this collection, in his careful way, he presses his ear against the hive of belief. It takes a renewed childlike faith, and Wiman achieves it through memory and imagination and, one gets the feeling, grace.”
https://www.poetryfoundation.org/poets/christian-wiman
https://imagejournal.org/artist/christian-wiman/
About the Devotion Author:
Andy Draycott
Associate Professor of Theology and Christian Ethics
Talbot School of Theology
Biola University
Andy Draycott is a British immigrant scholar living in Southern California with his family. He is a lifelong Charles Schultz Peanuts fan, enjoys reading novels and social history, cycling, running, and baking. Currently, he is an Associate Professor of Theology and Christian Ethics at Biola’s Talbot School of Theology. He counts God’s blessings in Christ, in local church, in family life, and in delightful work colleagues. His teaching and research on John Bunyan’s The Pilgrim’s Progress can be sampled at ProfessorPilgrimsProgress.com.