Shekinah
Thinking there would be a recent Vessel Schedule, I didn't check out the ship's name with binoculars, and it doesn't clarify to legible when enlarged, so I can't tell her name to refer to the schedule about her size, where she came from, what she's loading (standing high in the water, she's obviously arriving to load, not to unload), how long she'll be here, or where she's going. No matter, eh?
Joe's here, I'm having a cup of Lucky Goat coffee in my new coffee mug which, at first glance, looks endearing like lovely Blue Willow, but peering closer there are threatening monsters, including one wielding a mace and having a go at me, another apelike, another crocodilian with sharp teeth and a huge froggy mouth, a creature like R2D2, and pteradactyls in the sky. Over against the compellingly peaceful scenes in Blue Willow, it does not look a warm place to live and love, or even to be.
But it holds my usual three-cup coffee perk instead of my having to go back for the gone-cold remainder.
In fact, it goes quite nicely with Linda's wedding Wedgwood Blue Florentine china with dragons weaving tongues through the eye sockets of oxen skulls.
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Shekinah, present at various and sundry Times in OT Heilsgeschichte, including for example, God in the Burning Bush confronting Moses on the holy mountain; forty years in the wilderness God present in the pillar of cloud by day and pillar of fire by night; God present in the Ark of the Covenant leading Joshua through conquest of the Promised Land; and ultimately the glory of God abiding in the Holy of Holies of Solomon's Temple while the Holy Land was possessed by the Jews, and an anointed Messiah who was a Son of David was on the throne in Jerusalem; but Shekinah departing forever with Nebuchadnezzar's conquest of the Southern Kingdom, overthrow of the Messianic kings, destruction of Jerusalem and Solomon's Temple, and carrying God's people away into the Babylonian Exile.
Even with the Jews' return from Exile, rebuilding Jerusalem and the City Wall, and building the Second Temple, the Holy Land was occupied by foreigners, and the Messiah, Sons of David anointed kings, were never restored to the throne. My homiletic remarks expand on it a bit, but the idea is that without completion of God's dream, the Shekinah never returned, never took up residence in the Second Temple.
So the Jewish vision and dream became that the Messiah would return, not itself the completion, but a first step in a chosen and anointed Son of David back on the throne, foreigners driven from the Holy Land, and Shekinah, the glory of God would return. For Jews, except so-called "Messianic Jews" who acclaim Jesus, that has not happened. For secular Jews it's no longer a factor of life. But some religious Jews continue to look for the return of the Messiah and the restoration of God's kingdom on Earth as it was in the Time of David and Solomon, and ushering in the End of Days.
For Christians, who have long since lost any sense of connection with Jewish origins, the Messiah came as Jesus, whom, as Paul and Luke wrote, and Gospel John perfected as having been eternal, God adopted Jesus as his Son and elevated him to divinity. That the Shekinah was present in and as Jesus, Christianity proves in Luke's nativity story, in Matthew's star of Bethlehem, in the theophanies of Jesus' baptism and transfiguration, throughout Jesus' life, teaching and ministry, in Jesus' bodily ascension into heaven that outshines Elijah's ascension in a chariot of fire drawn by horses of fire.
So the point is that, while Christians arguably have the Shekinah present as from the coming of the Holy Spirit in tongues of fire at Pentecost, really and ultimately we are in the same theological posture as Jews who still await the coming of the Messiah and the return of the Shekinah to restore Israel: in the Gospels, Christ promises to return in clouds of glory to reign, and Paul says the trumpet will sound, the dead will be raised, and living and dead will meet Christ in the air for judgment as a new creation comes about, as Christ the Son of Man establishes the kingdom of God on Earth for those who are saved into it. Christ has died, Christ is risen and ascended, Christ will come again: just as do the Jews, we Christians also await the Messiah and the return of the Shekinah, the glory of God on Earth among His people. Both Jews and Christians in a Time of expectation.
Nomesane? Think about it. As for my apparent recent obsession with the notion of Shekinah and connecting it with Jesus, Christ, Messiah, I acquired it during online studies with Professor N T Wright, whom I greatly admire and totally credit* with capturing my fascination. As for me personally, gazing into the seeming infinity of the Universe and realizing over and over again that "Your God Is Too Small," I now intend to be done discussing this subject and to move on to something new.
RSF&PTL
T
* I do credit friend Jane for putting me on to N T Wright in the first place. TW+