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The world has long cherished a love affair with the Empire State Building.
The romance began when its construction was completed at the height of the Great Depression. The work took just 410 days, and finished both ahead of schedule and under budget. As many as 3,400 workers were on site simultaneously, stoking a national conviction that America could still accomplish great things during the darkest of economic times.
The building features 73 elevators capable of traveling up to 1,200 feet per minute. That means the trip from the lobby to the 102nd floor observation deck takes less than 60 seconds.
Of course, if you prefer, there’s a more strenuous route to the top – 1,576 steps from street level to the lower observation deck on the 86th floor. During the annual Empire State Building run-up, participants from around the globe take the stairs at full speed. Last year’s winner reached the 86th floor in just over ten and a half minutes.
On a clear day, observers can see up to 80 miles, taking in parts of New York, New Jersey, Connecticut, and Pennsylvania.
Enough snail mail arrives every week that the US Postal Service has assigned the Empire State Building its very own ZIP code: 10118.
The building’s reputation has been significantly enhanced by its exterior lighting. The LED system that was installed in 2012 can display more than 16 million colors – more than enough to represent the full spectrum of moods, hopes, and celebrations of New York City and the nation at large.
Then there’s the sentimentality associated with the skyscraper being prominently featured in more than 40 Hollywood films.
It’s been a rendezvous for lovers (An Affair to Remember and Sleepless in Seattle), the backdrop for a visitor from the North Pole (Elf), and the focal point of an invasion from outer space (Independence Day). Likewise, there’s only one building in the world worthy of King Kong swatting airplanes while trying to hold on to Faye Wray.
Those are pretty extraordinary facts.
But it’s just as easy to make the case that the Empire State Building is no longer all that impressive.
At 1,250 feet, it was the tallest building in the world at its ribbon-cutting ceremony in 1931 – a status that it retained for 41 years.
These days the Art Deco masterpiece is a statistical also-ran. As of this summer, the ESB has dropped all the way to #60 on the list of the world’s tallest buildings. At the pace new skyscrapers are being built in East Asia, it will soon drop out of the top 100. Incredibly, the Empire State Building is no longer even the biggest deal in New York City. Today it’s merely the eighth tallest building in town.
Why is there such a race to build taller and taller structures?
Things that are high have always fascinated human beings. They are suggestive of power and transcendence.
Less than a dozen chapters into the Bible, humanity is absorbed in the construction of “a tower that reaches to the heavens, so that we may make a name for ourselves” (Genesis 11:4). God hovers over this ego-centered engineering project, seeming to say, “Now, what do we have here?” The Tower of Babel ultimately becomes his means of separating people by means of linguistic differences.
On the pages of Scripture, altars are typically built on “high places.” Sacrifices are offered by high priests. The devil tempts Jesus to leap from the highest point on the Temple Mount, because that would be spectacular. Kings throughout history are addressed as Your Highness. We speak today of high ideals and high achievers. Politicians run for high office.
Even drug-taking is described as “getting high” – an experience that makes us feel that at least for a moment we can exist on a higher plane.
And who or what qualifies as the highest of the high?
That would be Yahweh, who 42 times on the pages of the Old Testament is described as El Elyon, or “Most High.” Note the superlative. God isn’t just somewhere up there with other important realities. He towers above them all.
El Elyon appears in texts like Psalm 91:1: “He who dwells in the shelter of the Most High will abide in the shadow of the Almighty.”
Shadows are precious in the Holy Land. A shadow provides relief from the burning sun. A shadow can be a safe place to hide. And God, as the “tallest” of all realities, casts the longest shadow.
What does it mean to honor God as God?
It means to do a fearless inventory of every single thing in my life to which I attribute value: my family, my reputation, my bank account, my talents, my deepest dreams.
And then to live in such a way that I can say, with integrity, God tops this, too.
The Empire State Building will always be a special, sentimental destination. And on a clear day you can see 80 miles.
Then again, if you align yourself with the Most High, there’s every reason to believe you can see forever.