Docents of Glory: Gerard Manley Hopkins (5)

Go to the ant, you sluggard!
Consider her ways and be wise… Proverbs 6.6

Therefore, whether you eat or drink, or whatever you do, do all to the glory of God. 1 Corinthians 10.31

Science catches up
Scientific American reports that ants, which have no leaders but exhibit enormous collective wisdom, might provide insights for improving a variety of human social systems (“Collective Wisdom of Ants,” Deborah M. Gordon, February 2016). The renowned science journal recommends that we go to the ant and consider her ways and be wise, to learn how shared need and common interest can generate undirected cooperative social behavior.

There is wisdom to be gained from observing even common ants, because ants are creatures of God, and they have a voice of praise for Him. We welcome the voice of the scientific community to that of King Solomon in calling us to study God’s creatures for what we can learn from them about Him.

Every created thing has a purpose; nothing is here by chance. The world is just too complex and wonderful for that to be a reasonable explanation. As Pierre Simon (1749-1827), one of the fathers of the scientific revolution observed concerning the progress of stars and planets, “We are compelled to acknowledge the effect of a cause; chance alone could not have given a form nearly circular to the orbit of all the planets” (Considerations on the System of the Universe). What’s true of the great things of the cosmos is true of even the smallest: Everything has a cause, and every cause expresses a purpose; and that purpose is to praise and glorify God.

The entire creation is a vast Rorhschach Test, and the answer to the questions posed by every created thing is always the same: God and His glory.

One thing and the same
And, since the glory of God is most perfectly, lucidly, and compellingly present in the face of our Lord Jesus Christ, that means that all creation points to Jesus, reveals Jesus, and glorifies God in Jesus Christ. If your view of Jesus is limited only to the four books of the gospels, you’ll never know Him as He intends. All Scripture speaks of Jesus (Jn. 6.63). And beyond that, all the millions of creatures throughout the entire vast cosmos have something to tell us about Jesus, if only we know how to look.

Gerard Manley Hopkins knew how to look, and he saw the purpose of created things as carrying out the will of God in making Jesus known. Here’s his poem, “As kingfishers catch fire”:

As kingfishers catch fire, dragonflies draw flame;
As tumbled over rim in roundy wells
Stones ring; like each tucked string tells, each hung bell’s
Bow swung finds tongue to fling out broad its name;
Each mortal thing does one thing and the same:
Deals out that being indoors each one dwells;
Selves – goes itself; myself it speaks and spells,
Crying What I do is me; for that I came.

I say more: the just man justices;
Keeps grace: that keeps all his goings graces;
Acts in God’s eye what in God’s eye he is –
Christ – for Christ plays in ten thousand places,
Lovely in limbs, and lovely in eyes not his
To the Father through the features of men’s faces.

Everything has a purpose – flashing birds, shimmering insects, little stones falling into a well, plucked guitar strings and ringing bells – everything! And this is especially true of people, who are made in the image of God. People and creatures are, in Hopkins’ vision, stages on which Christ plays out the drama of God’s glory. Each creature, great or small, living or nonliving, human or otherwise, is a prop or member of the cast to declare the praises of God through our Lord Jesus Christ.

No little creatures
Francis Schaeffer wrote a book entitled No Little People, in which he argued that God has invested every human being with vast potential to glorify and serve Him, even in the most ordinary and everyday of ways. He wrote, “Each Christian is to be a rod of God in the place of God for him. We must remember throughout our lives that in God’s sight there are no little people and no little places. Only one thing is important, to be the consecrated persons in God’s place for us, at each moment.”

What’s true for us is true for all God’s creatures. Everything exists by God, in God, and for God, to sing His praise and glorify His Name through our Lord Jesus Christ. Let us pray that God will give us eyes to see, like Gerard Manley Hopkins, and voices to proclaim, in our own place and way, the wonder of the presence and beauty of Christ in glory, upholding and filling the universe and everything in it, playing in 10,000 places everyday, in every situation in our lives (Eph. 4.10).

For reflection
1.  What “stages” has Christ provided you, to live in and through you the drama of God’s glory?

2.  Meditate on John 1.1-3, Hebrews 1.3, and Colossians 1.17, 18. Why is it reasonable to regard the world as a Rohrschach Test with Jesus as the ultimate answer to every question?

3.  How do you think people would regard you if you began talking about “seeing Jesus” in the various places and people of your life?

Next steps: Do people see Jesus in your eyes and in the features of your face? What would that look like if they did? Talk with some Christian friends about these questions.

T. M. Moore

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Except as indicated, Scripture taken from the New King James Version. © Copyright 1982 by Thomas Nelson, Inc. Used by permission. All rights reserved.