Fireworks – over too quickly?

In my previous post I said I've reimagined Jesus, the Light of the World as a firework - disruptive, thrilling, attention-grabbing, unpredictable, beautiful, transfixing...

But isn't there a danger in that? Fireworks are over in an instant and have little lasting effect. Or do they?

I spoke of being totally present to the sensations around me as I watched the display on Saturday, and that experience has had an effect on me. I feel connected to the present in a way that I haven't for a long time, and the only thing that has come close to doing that for me in the past has been when I've practised Centring Prayer (a form of meditation) or while I've been praying.

Jesus' 33 years (or so) on the earth really was no time at all in the grand scheme of eternity, yet his incarnation, ministry, death and resurrection rent the heavens and changed reality in a way that could be described as explosive. Nothing has been the same since...

My favourite fireworks were the ones that screamed up high into the sky, paused for a moment then exploded with a bang into a shower of falling stars. But that wasn't the end, because each of those falling stars then crackled into a shower of smaller lights, beautiful because of the patterns they made together. My daughter described them as looking like flowers opening.

Without wishing to descend into cliché, it struck me that we are meant to be fireworks too – revealing beauty and light that comes from the first revelation, the bang of the Christ event. Our small time of shining is only effective when we create patterns of growth and community...