Groundhog’s Day
Friday is Groundhog's Day. If it is cloudy when a groundhog emerges from its burrow, then the spring will arrive early. If it's sunny, the groundhog will see its shadow and retreat back into its den, and winter will continue for six more weeks. The groundhog mistakes its own shadow for something real. What is reality?
We see kids and adults playing electronics - living in a digital world. You see people everywhere texting, or checking Facebook. They are not fully connected with what is going on around them. But what is reality?
Could it be that this world is not even what's real? That we are living in an alternate universe? Could it be we are living in something like the Matrix?
I think we get a hint of this in the Psalms. David wrote several psalms that compare our lives to a shadow.
"Man is like a breath; his days are like a fleeting shadow." (Psalm 144:4)
"I fade away like an evening shadow; I am shaken off like a locust." (Psalm 109:23)
"For my days vanish like smoke; my bones burn like glowing embers.... My days are like the evening shadow; I wither away like grass.... In the course of my life he broke my strength; he cut short my days. So I said: 'Do not take me away, O my God, in the midst of my days; your years go on through all generations. In the beginning you laid the foundations of the earth, and the heavens are the work of your hands. They will perish, but you remain; they will all wear out like a garment. Like clothing you will change them and they will be discarded. But you remain the same, and your years will never end. The children of your servants will live in your presence; their descendants will be established before you.' " (Psalm 102:3,11,23-28)
The last part of that psalm gives us a clue. Even though life on earth is short our years will never end with God, it will go on for generations.
Many other OT writers wrote of life and death being a shadow. Even Matthew wrote about Jesus as: "The people living in darkness have seen a great light; on those living in the land of the shadow of death a light has dawned." (Matt 4:16)
Notice the contrast between Jesus being the light and this world being the shadow. Paul told the church in Colossi:
"These are a shadow of the things that were to come; the reality, however, is found in Christ." (Col 4:17)
And the Hebrew writer said: "The law is only a shadow of the good things that are coming--not the realities themselves." (Heb 10:1)
Those passages refer to the Old Testament worship being a shadow of Jesus and His kingdom. In Him is reality.
"Now we know that if the earthly tent we live in is destroyed, we have a building from God, an eternal house in heaven, not built by human hands. Meanwhile we groan, longing to be clothed with our heavenly dwelling, because when we are clothed, we will not be found naked. For while we are in this tent, we groan and are burdened, because we do not wish to be unclothed but to be clothed with our heavenly dwelling, so that what is mortal may be swallowed up by life. Now it is God who has made us for this very purpose and has given us the Spirit as a deposit, guaranteeing what is to come. Therefore we are always confident and know that as long as we are at home in the body we are away from the Lord. We live by faith, not by sight. We are confident, I say, and would prefer to be away from the body and at home with the Lord. So we make it our goal to please him, whether we are at home in the body or away from it. For we must all appear before the judgment seat of Christ, that each one may receive what is due him for the things done while in the body, whether good or bad." (2 Cor 5:1-10)
We should not get too comfortable in this place, because we are destined for a home that is greater.
"But our citizenship is in heaven. And we eagerly await a Savior from there, the Lord Jesus Christ, who, by the power that enables him to bring everything under his control, will transform our lowly bodies so that they will be like his glorious body." (Phil 3:20-21)
Let's not get distracted by these shadows around us like some groundhog. Remember that what is real is not the digital world, it's not the material world, but it's the spiritual world.
-Jay Crook