"Arrival" and Glory

“Arrival” and Glory

There's a scene in the movie "Arrival" where Jeremy Renner's and Amy Adams's characters begin to enter an alien space craft in order to try to communicate with them. Just before they ascend into the craft, a gurney passes them with a human on it who is being medivaced. When asked what happened, the Doctor answers, "Sometimes people can't process what they experience here."

The one time shepherd boy, David, says in Ps.19:1, "The heavens are telling of the glory of God". The word glory at its root, means weight. Abraham is said to be very heavy (Gen.13:2). The context refers to the magnitude of his wealth. It can refer to someone's reputation or their high social position, which makes them an honored or weighty person.

My bible dictionary goes on to say, "It is not merely God's reputation which fills the earth, but it is the very reality of His presence. And His desire is that all persons may gladly recognize and own this."

I really enjoyed the scene in "Arrival" when we follow Amy Adams's character in her first experience in the presence of the Aliens. She has an accelerated heart rate, begins breathing faster, becomes dizzy, disoriented. We see repeated examples of this same type of experience in the Bible when humans come into contact with angels, God's presence and even with Jesus. Several of the prophets and John the Revelator, fall down as if dead in God's presence. In John 18 when the soldiers who came to arrest Jesus asked if He was Jesus of Nazareth, they all fell to the ground when He said, "I am He." Upon completion of the Temple, God's presence filled it such that, "The priests could not enter into the house of the Lord because the glory of the Lord filled the Lord's house."

It tickles me yet also puzzles me that Hollywood can portray an experience of such awesomeness, an Alien encounter, where humans struggle to handle it such that they physically react. But when it comes to experiencing the Presence of God in church, which is what Christians say they desire all the time, and someone gets the least bit emotional, GOD FORBID they fall on the ground, we freak out.

Like my dictionary says about God's glory revealed by His presence, God's desire is that all persons may gladly recognize and OWN this. If, as David declares, creation declares God's glory, the full weightiness of who He is as well as His presence. Then WE should, as part of His creation own His presence and reveal it to the world through our lives.

I truly believe we sell ourselves, the world and Him short by downplaying what we were designed to carry. Paul said, "we have this treasure in earthen vessels, so that the surpassing greatness of His power (we can substitute "glory" here) will be of God and not from ourselves." Way too often we focus on the earthen vessel rather than the

glory, His presence, that dwells within in us. The key difference for me then is, do we desire to own it.