{"id":1882,"date":"2022-08-12T09:58:19","date_gmt":"2022-08-12T13:58:19","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/js1cd06kre.onrocket.site\/?p=1882"},"modified":"2022-08-12T09:58:19","modified_gmt":"2022-08-12T13:58:19","slug":"camelot","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/glennsreflections.com\/index.php\/2022\/08\/12\/camelot\/","title":{"rendered":"Camelot"},"content":{"rendered":"\n
\"\"<\/figure>\n\n\n\n

Throughout the month of August,\u00a0we\u2019re taking a close look at 23 verses of the New Testament.\u00a0 They comprise Ephesians chapter one, which paints one of the Bible\u2019s most comprehensive pictures of what it means for ordinary people to be \u201cin Christ.\u201d \u00a0<\/em>
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Despite the shocking news from Dallas, the show still went on.
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On the evening of November 22, 1963 \u2013 the Friday that President John F. Kennedy was assassinated \u2013 the musical Camelot<\/em> played to a capacity crowd of more than 3,000 in the Chicago Opera House.\u00a0 The smash hit, evoking romance and high idealism, had come to represent the nation\u2019s embrace of the young chief executive and his family.\u00a0
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Jackie Kennedy later gave an interview to Theodore H. White of Life<\/em> magazine.\u00a0 Looking back, she said, \u201cAll I kept thinking of is a line from a musical: \u2018Don\u2019t let it be forgot that once there was a spot for one brief shining moment that was known as Camelot.\u2019\u201d\u00a0
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Lyricist Alan J. Lerner was in the crowd that evening in Chicago.\u00a0 At the moment when King Arthur sang that line near the end of the show \u2013 his sorrowful recognition that Camelot was coming to an end \u2013 \u201cThere was a sudden wail from the audience, a muffled sob, a loud, almost primitive cry of pain.\u201d \u00a0And then the show simply stopped.\u00a0 For almost five minutes those on the stage, in the wings, in the orchestra pit, and in the audience wept without restraint.
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The president and the dream were dead.\u00a0
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The longing for an ideal world \u201cwhere dreams really do come true,\u201d as Dorothy sings in The Wizard of Oz<\/em>, is deep and ancient.\u00a0 \u00a0
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But it never happens.\u00a0 Broken promises, unforeseen circumstances, or unrealistic ideals have doomed every human endeavor to bring heaven to earth.
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But Ephesians 1 claims that Jesus is going to succeed.\u00a0 Paul writes in verse 10 that the mystery of God\u2019s will is going \u201cto be put into effect when the times reach their fulfillment\u2014to bring unity to all things in heaven and on earth under Christ.\u201d<\/strong><\/em>
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The five English words \u201cto be put into effect\u201d are a translation of the single Greek word oikonomia<\/u><\/em>. That\u2019s the source of our modern word \u201ceconomy.\u201d\u00a0 Essentially Jesus is the Chairman of the Federal Reserve Board of the universe.\u00a0 He watches over all of reality, carefully planning everything that is happening \u2013 except that with Jesus, there is no possibility that God\u2019s system is ever going to melt down or crash.
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God owns and manages everything.\u00a0 <\/em>In the words of theologian Walter Wink, \u201cTo worship is to remember Who owns the house.\u201d\u00a0
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Today Jesus rules invisibly.\u00a0 At the end of history, \u201cwhen the times reach their fulfillment,\u201d his rule will become visible to everyone.\u00a0 Today we can sample in part<\/em> the spiritual treasures that will one day be ours in full<\/em>.\u00a0 This means our lives are going somewhere, and every moment of every day is shot through with purpose.\u00a0
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The contemporary philosopher Thomas Nagel, for one, isn\u2019t having it.\u00a0 He\u2019s convinced that history is heading nowhere.\u00a0 In his book What Does It All Mean?<\/em> he encourages his readers to abandon the fantasy of discovering Meaning with a capital \u201cM.\u201d\u00a0 That\u2019s because no such thing exists.\u00a0 Nagel writes:
\u00a0
Even if you produce a great work of literature which continues to be read thousands of years from now, eventually the solar system will cool or the universe will wind down and collapse and all trace of your effort will vanish\u2026 The problem is that although there are justifications for most things big and small that we do within life, none of these explanations explain the point of your life as a whole\u2026 It wouldn\u2019t matter if you had never existed.\u00a0 And after you have gone out of existence, it won\u2019t matter that you did exist.<\/em>
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As you might guess, Nagel isn\u2019t invited to speak at many kids\u2019 birthday parties.\u00a0
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If you reject the idea that God exists \u2013 and along with it, the existence of things like Purpose and Meaning \u2013 you\u2019ll have to generate your own reasons to get up in the morning.\u00a0 Traditionally, the meaning of human life is \u201cinherent.\u201d\u00a0 It is objectively there, planted by God, waiting to be discovered.\u00a0 But if God is just a mirage, then all meaning is arbitrary.\u00a0 It\u2019s whatever you want it to be.\u00a0 It\u2019s as if you\u2019re in the middle of one of those children\u2019s stories that wraps up with Choose Your Own Ending.\u00a0
\u00a0
That seems exhilarating \u2013 the ultimate expression of freedom.\u00a0 But as author and pastor Tim Keller argues, \u201cSuch created meanings are much more fragile and thin than discovered meanings.\u201d\u00a0
\u00a0
In the end, those who deny Meaning with a capital M will still be longing for Camelot \u2013 an ideal realm in which people can finally experience peace, love, and joy.\u00a0 But in their heart of hearts, they know that such a world, even if it came into existence, could never last.\u00a0
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Before we reach the end of this month and the end of the first chapter of Ephesians, we\u2019ll hear Paul energetically disagree.
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There is a God.\u00a0 And it\u2019s not you<\/em>.
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Your life is not your own project.\u00a0
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Your life is a gift from the God who has adopted you as his treasured child, and he will make sure you’ll be at the never-ending Party at the end of history.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

Throughout the month of August,\u00a0we\u2019re taking a close look at 23 verses of the New Testament.\u00a0 They comprise Ephesians chapter one, which paints one of the Bible\u2019s most comprehensive pictures of what it means for ordinary people to be \u201cin Christ.\u201d \u00a0\u00a0Despite the shocking news from Dallas, the show still went on.\u00a0On the evening of November 22, 1963 \u2013 the… Read more »<\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":1883,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[1],"tags":[480,487],"class_list":["post-1882","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-uncategorized","tag-ephesians","tag-meaning"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/glennsreflections.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1882","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/glennsreflections.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/glennsreflections.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/glennsreflections.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/glennsreflections.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=1882"}],"version-history":[{"count":1,"href":"https:\/\/glennsreflections.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1882\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":1884,"href":"https:\/\/glennsreflections.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1882\/revisions\/1884"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/glennsreflections.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/1883"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/glennsreflections.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=1882"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/glennsreflections.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=1882"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/glennsreflections.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=1882"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}