I like many different forms of music. I enjoy light rap, pop, easy listening, some country, some jazz and a bit of opera, even. But fundamentally, I like rock and roll; U2, the Boss, REM, Journey, Loverboy, Bryan Adams and of course, Bon Jovi. One of my favorite rock bands years ago was Survivor. They just knew how to rock out. This was maybe the only group where I liked every single song they did. They had one song in particular called “Oceans” which inspired the title of this post (Oceans between us.) That song had a refrain that went:
“Oceans between us
Strangers upon the shore
Like islands we stand alone
Oceans between us now.”
I thought the symbolism of the title of the song and the notion that two people could be so close, and yet so far apart all at the same time was pretty striking, if not tragic!
I’ve heard and read comments at points in my life where a man or a woman is suffering from a broken heart. They try everything they can to please, to keep a partner, to restore a relationship, but like two people in the ocean, they seem to be caught in two different currents, drifting apart from each other no matter how hard they resist. I read recently when a twenty-something woman describes a “hole” in her heart that can only be filled by the return of her boyfriend. I had a hole just like that in my heart when my late wife died.
From that reference above, my mind wandered to the relationship between people and their Creator. God wants so much for the human race to love Him, to freely choose to love Him but there is a vast ocean between us.
Before the modern age of jet aircraft, fiber optic telecommunications and artificial intelligence, oceans used to represent vast expanses separating the great hemispheres. Only six hundred years ago in the history of civilization, people were convinced that these enormous expanses of water could not be traversed, either because the world was flat, or because terrible monsters lurked in the deep, intent on devouring the foolish crews who tried to venture out, or because even if there were foreign lands, they could not possibly be reached because of the sheer distances involved. Eventually, however, man was able to overcome that and now a startup company planning to develop a successor to the Concorde believes travelers can fly from New York to London in only 3 hours, 15 minutes, much shorter than the ten-week voyage of Columbus and covering a slightly greater distance.
Today we are considering another expanse, the cosmos. There are scientists today who are skeptical that cosmonauts will ever reach neighboring planets, yet alone near-by stars, because of the danger from radiation, long periods of weightlessness, and the sheer amount of time (a lifetime) to get from Earth to the closest star. There is also the return trip to Earth to consider as well. This gulf between our star and our neighboring stars is much more challenging than the distance between Europe and the New World ever was. Other scientists are undaunted however, and they firmly believe that these engineering hurtles can too be overcome given sufficient resources, talent and time.
But there is one other chasm that can never be bridged by technology or talent or time, and that is the distance between humanity and its Creator. When working on the ceiling of the Sistine Chapel, Michelangelo included a scene called “The Creation of Adam.” In this motif God is pictured as reaching to Adam while Adam appears to be half-heartedly reaching towards God. But while their hands are in close proximity to each other, their fingers never quite touch. Nor could they after Adam sinned against God. In fact, because of our sinful nature, we cannot even see God directly (“’But,’ He said, ‘you cannot see my face, for no one may see me and live’” Exodus 33:20 33.)
There is an example of this separation in a parable Jesus once told of a person named Lazarus and another individual known only as “the rich man. This story is related in the Gospel of Luke (16:19-31.)
“There was a rich man who was dressed in purple and fine linen and lived in luxury every day.
At his gate was laid a beggar named Lazarus, covered with sores
and longing to eat what fell from the rich man’s table. Even the dogs came and licked his sores.
The time came when the beggar died and the angels carried him to Abraham’s side. The rich man also died and was buried.
In Hades, where he was in torment, he looked up and saw Abraham far away, with Lazarus by his side.
So he called to him, ‘Father Abraham, have pity on me and send Lazarus to dip the tip of his finger in water and cool my tongue, because I am in agony in this fire.’
But Abraham replied, ‘Son, remember that in your lifetime you received your good things, while Lazarus received bad things, but now he is comforted here and you are in agony.
And besides all this, between us and you a great chasm has been set in place, so that those who want to go from here to you cannot, nor can anyone cross over from there to us.’
He answered, ‘Then I beg you, father, send Lazarus to my family,
for I have five brothers. Let him warn them, so that they will not also come to this place of torment.’
Abraham replied, ‘They have Moses and the Prophets; let them listen to them.’
No, father Abraham,’ he said, ‘but if someone from the dead goes to them, they will repent.’
He said to him, ‘If they do not listen to Moses and the Prophets, they will not be convinced even if someone rises from the dead.’”
People are not destined for eternal torment on the basis of their prosperity and the poor are not automatically given the keys to the Kingdom. Rich or poor, man or woman, democrat or republican, American or Russian, salvation comes because your sins have been forgiven and you’ve been reconciled to your Creator. This repentance and forgiveness is the only way to close the distance and reach the opposite shore. In this illustration from Luke, we hear Abraham note that between the righteousness dead and those who died in a state of unbelief “a great chasm has been set in place, so that those who want to go from here to [there] cannot, nor can anyone cross over from there to [here.]” Again, nothing that man has or can devise or engineer in the future can ever bridge this gulf. This ocean. We may someday reach the stars through our own ingenuity, but left to our own devices, we cannot ourselves approach God. Not because God would be insulted or angry if we did. It’s just that we are incompatible with God because of our sinful nature. Like the opposite poles on two magnets repel one magnet from the other, or as matter is obliterated when it comes in contact with antimatter (and I apologize to anyone who actually paid attention in physics class because I’ve deliberately fudged with the outcome of the latter example to make a point.)
But all is not lost because God in his mercy and love for humanity devised a way. You can be sure that your course in life will take you through the storms that may blow to a friendly port if you let God be the captain of your Soul.
