OUT OUR WAY: Our Father in Heaven

Out our way, we are used to the "Big Open." I recall Andy Rooney of "60 Minutes" fame once made fun of Montana's "Big Sky" slogan, saying we have the same sky as everyone else. Then he made a trip to Montana. When he later wrote up his commentary on state slogans, he dropped his reference to Montana. That happens to a lot of folks.

For folks who have never seen further than a few miles in any direction, the sight of the vast prairies and rolling plains can be overwhelming. I know the first time Charlie and I pushed cattle on the Tiger Ridge and I got to the top of a rise looking all the way to Canada, I was awestruck. I still am, for the Big Open is vast and overwhelming.

Friends from back east wonder why I live here. How do I explain the overpowering sense of awe I get from such vistas to someone who has never seen nor even imagined such a sight.

Doc reminds me that if I think Montana is glorious, wait until I get a gander at heaven. (I know, God's area code is 406, and when I pray its a local call). Yet he's got a point. Heaven is far too vast for me to comprehend.

"Our Father Who is in heaven" is the first part of the Lord's Prayer. We have already looked at the first two words, "Our Father," and were reminded that God is personal God. Not some distant far off and indifferent Being as in pagan religions, but the God who is both creator of every one of us and also loving parent. Recall the images Jesus used to describe "Abba," "papa" in his native Aramaic, the story of the Prodigal Son and the loving father who waited by the roadside day after day for his foolish son to come to his senses, and when he did, Papa ran to his boy to embrace him and welcome him home. Jesus also described God as a mother hen, gathering her chicks to warm and protect them. These are the images Christ gave of us the Lord God - the great "I Am" - who is also papa, and for whom no creature is a stranger or unloved. But now add to the His address: "Heaven." The word covers far more ground that the Pearly Gates, mansions or streets of gold, although how can the finite mind understand the Divine Infinite?

People will marvel and even worship creation, but creation is not the Creator. A Rembrandt painting is a treasure beyond compare, but it is not Rembrandt. He may create a masterpiece, but it is the artist himself who is the real master. Years ago the program "Nova" offered an episode in which it noted that many modern physicists believe the Universe has far more dimensions than our senses can comprehend. They attempted to demonstrate by suggesting what the world would be like if it were two-dimensional. It was a flat plain. How would we understand something in the third dimension. They illustrated it by suggesting the two-dimensional world as a piece of paper, with the third dimension being represented by a pencil being driven through the paper. In the two-dimensional world we would only see that part of the pencil that went through the hole, but never the pencil itself.

Nova suggested the modern physicists' speculation that there may be many more dimensions in the universe than we, in our limited, finite state, can perceive. I get a headache as the narrator explains that some scientists suggest there may be at least 10 more. Oy Veh! What a headache I am getting! And yet ... if all of this true, these hidden dimensions are still part of creation; they are not the Creator. Heaven is a word that is meant to describe the concept of God's power far beyond anything we can even begin to imagine.

Back to Rembrandt. The universe and all of creation are the canvas, and the realm of the artist is Heaven. What in the painting can limit the artist? Who can force Rembrandt to change his design? Do you begin to grasp the immense and infinite aspect of God represented in that phrase "Who is in Heaven?"

Yet God is not Rembrandt; distant and aloof from the canvas, he is still painting. God has invested Himself completely into Creation, most notably in His Son taking His place on the canvas with the rest of us. That is why the words that begin the prayer, "Our Father," are so powerful. The Creator of all things in all His vastness and infinite power, is still our Abba: our Papa.

Wrapping my head around the immensity of the universe is nothing compared to trying even to begin to grasp the reality of those opening words: "Our Father in Heaven" 

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Doc and Brother John Bruingron can be reached at bruingtonjohn@gmail.com - blessings to all.