The Arc Of The Covenant

I want to talk about the Arc of the Covenant. That's not a typo although you could argue that it's a pun. We live in a fallen world. Mortal frailty and corrupt influences exert a powerful gravitational force on our aspirations to reach towards the heavens. We are children of Light. We remember deep in our souls what it is like to rocket through the skies untethered by the stifling heaviness of the cares of this world. And so we leap. We reach for the stars. With our whole souls we soar towards our Father with an eye single to His glory and with the intention of returning to the Heavens to be by His side. And then we fall. We fail. We are distracted and discouraged and dragged down by the pain and the fear and the anger, the lust and the cruelty and the cowardice, by greed and pretty revenge and smallmindedness. This is the Arc of the Covenant. We strive and leap for greatness only to plunge back down into mediocrity and failure. But the fact that we end up back on the ground does not rob us of the elation and freedom of those few moments when we sailed through the air. It is possible to be good and kind and loving and even perfect for a few moments, and if we then fall back on cruelty and hatred and imperfection, it does not mean that we can't take another leap towards goodness and kindness and love and perfection again. The more and more we leap, the higher and longer we will soar. If we can recognize that even the farthest flying birds have to land back down on earth and leave the sky from time to time, then maybe we can learn to recognize that our falls from grace, our lapses or moments of weakness or our interruptions in our perfect streaks are not something to be mourned or entirely avoided. If we leap with no thought or preparation for our eventual and inevitable fall back to earth, then we are all but guaranteed to crash badly instead of land smoothly. But if we fly through the air with a mind toward a controlled descent, then we can avoid a lot of pain and disillusionment. We are meant to be lifted up and carried by the Spirit, to see the world spread out before us, to have our minds enlightened and our spirits filled with the transcendent light and warmth of our Heavenly Father's love. And then we are meant to return once more to the Earth. We do this not just because while on this mortal journey we are wading constantly through the heavy gravity of a fallen world. The Arc of the Covenant does not go up and then back down only because we lack the strength or innate goodness to hover and float forever above the cares of the benighted and fallen world below us. We are meant to ascend into the heavens so that we may see and think and feel as God sees and thinks and feels not just because it is a particularly nice or pleasant way of seeing and thinking and feeling, but because after our ascent we are meant to descend and return to Earth, not due to our unworthiness, but because that fallen and benighted world needs us. It needs our love and our transcendent vision. We have brothers and sisters who are also being dragged down by the gravity of a fallen world. They need our help to know that they too can leap and soar. This is the Arc of the Covenant. We feel the joy and the freedom and the lightness of heaven and then we come back down to earth because we love our brothers and sisters and want them to have that same joy and freedom and lightness. We don't get to stay aloft forever in this life and there may be days when we can't so much as lift our heads much less leap into the air. But if we choose to land instead of crash land, if we view our downward trajectory on the Arc of the Covenant not as an inevitable failure or a necessary evil but rather as an act of compassion and grace and love, then falling is not infuriating or demoralizing, it is not a failure of but an essential part of the Arc of the Covenant. Christ Himself came to this world not to float above the world like some haughty and holier than thou Superman. He was here with us in the trenches, not condemning us for sinning and falling and failing, but encouraging and commanding us to never give up on leaping and reaching for heaven. What goes up must come down, but what comes down must never tire of trying one more time to go back up.