“Now Christ is the visible expression of the invisible God….

He is both the first Principle and the Upholding

Principle of the whole scheme of creation”

(Colossians 1:14,17)

The earliest childhood recollection of Pierre Teilhard de Chardin, the French paleontologist and philosopher, was a terrifying memory. It was the event of his first haircut. Vernon Sproxton, in Teilhard de Chardin, quotes Teilhard’s description of that experience: “My very first memory is of my mother clipping off a few of my curls. I picked one up and held it to the fire. It was burned up in a flash. Terrible grief overcame me. I learned that I was perishable.”

The first haircut and curl-burning experience stirred the young Teilhard to begin a lifelong search for the durable. He became intrigued with a piece of iron from an old plough he picked up about the family farm in the south of France. It became his talisman, for in his childish understanding of reality, he thought nothing could be more durable than this wonderful substance. But, when he learned that even iron rusted and crumbled, he cried.

Soon afterward he transferred his interest to the rocks and stones he found in abundance in the mountain ranges of his native Auvergne. Surely here in the solid granite he had found something indestructible. So he became in manhood a paleontologist who traced in the rocks and fossils of the earth the developing plan and purpose of the Creator through the centuries and the millennia of evolving life.

Then surprisingly, during his successful archeological work in China when he was in his early forties, Teilhard suffered a season of depression and despair. He lost confidence in himself and in the significance of his labors. Finally, the depression passed, and as he emerged from the gloom of his doubts and despondency, it was the future, tomorrow, that came to dominate his thoughts. “What counted now was not reconstructing the past, reanimat­ing the fossils; but the future,” Sproxton writes in Teilhard de Chardin. “He came to speak of himself as a pilgrim of the future on the way back from a journey made entirely in the past. That future, he came more and more to believe, would disclose some direction and destination which would give shape to the whole of life and bring together into a harmonious whole the palpably diverse and discrete elements of mankind.”

So he found, at long last, the durable and the secure for which his anxious and frightened heart had been searching, not in the iron and the rocks and the least perishable elements of God’s creation in the material world, but in the discernable purposes of the Creator and his future.

Sproxton says that the writings of Teilhard reveal his conviction that “life must be judged, not from the point of view of the slime from which man has emerged, but from the greatness to which he may aspire. It is the oak tree which gives the acorn significance.”

The passage of Scripture that became the organizing center for the life of Teilhard as a pilgrim of the future was the first chapter of Colossians. Here Saint Paul reaches the pinnacle of his thought on the nature and work of Christ. “Christ is the visible expression of the invisible God,” writes Paul. But he goes further than this. Paul and other apostles had said this and more beforehand. Now Paul asserts that all things in the created universe were made through Christ and for Christ. It is Christ in whom is to be discerned the originating principle and the sustaining principle of the universe. He is the goal toward which all things move. Christ is the prototype of all men and women. What Christ was and is, God has destined that all people should become. Christ’s redeeming death upon the cross is for the reconciliation of rebellious humanity to God and to all other people. And the Church — that community of people who have been gathered together by faith and love and obedience about the Crucified One — that body of people is the reconciling and unifying agency of God for the future. How wide the sweep, how high the reach, how propulsive into the future is the great apostle’s thought! There has emerged in the Church in recent years a theology of hope based on the future, not the past, the future of God. What God has ahead for the human family has come to dominate some of the best Christian thinking of our time.

Not only the theologians are becoming pilgrims of the future, but the most exciting, creative philosophers and politicians of our time are also among the pilgrims of the future. They see that future as laying hasty hands on our present and imploring us to follow its tugging.

Coach Lou Holtz of Notre Dame was asked by Volkswagen to write a letter to the next generation. Here’s a part of what he wrote:

During my teenage years, I was of the opinion that the future and security of this country would be dictated by the combat readiness of our military forces. However, as I grew older…, I became increasingly aware that our greatest enemy is ourselves. I will never forget a cartoon of Pogo that said: “We have met the enemy and they is us.” … The vulnerability of most societies lies within. As long as we remain strong within, I feel our future is secure.

… I believe our focus of attention should be upon the future.

Norman Cousins, in the lead editorial of the first issue of his new magazine World, wrote:

The compression of the whole of humanity into a single geographic area is the signal event of the contemporary era. The central question of that arena is whether the world will become a community or a wasteland, a single habitat or a single battlefield. More and more, the choice for the world’s people is between becoming world warriors or world citizens.

Perhaps the starkest discovery of our time is that our planet [like young Teilhard’s curls] is not indestructible and that its ability to sustain life is not limitless. For the first time in history, therefore, the physical condition of the planet Earth forces itself upon human intelligence….

… Life is now imperiled not because of any failure of the cosmic design but because of human intervention.

… The banner now commanding the greatest attention [for the future] has human unity stamped upon it.

Now what does all this mean for us — this pressing pilgrimage into the future? Teilhard de Chardin’s search for the durable and imperishable and his coming at last to be a pilgrim of the future? Saint Paul’s proclamation of the Christian manifesto in terms of a future for mankind and the world in Christ? The reemergence in urgency of a theology of hope in God’s future? The growing consciousness among all thoughtful and responsible people, young and old alike, of the heavy hand the future is now laying on us? What does all this mean?

For our personal life and daily work it means that becoming a pilgrim of the future is the way out of our present frustrations, disappointments, and despair. “Michelangelo, so a story goes, was asked once how he went about carving a head of Christ,” Sproxton recounts in Teilhard de Chardin. “He replied that he saw the head of Christ already existing in the stone and it was a matter of chipping away the unwanted material.” If we see our respon­sibilities in our place of work and study and service and artistic creation in terms of liberating Christ, already enshrined here and ordained from all eternity to emerge and rule, what an inspiring and liberating motivation for all our efforts.

It was once my privilege and joy to work on a church staff with a very remarkable woman. She was the church secretary and had been for twenty-five years before I came to the church as a pastor. She remained in that position for almost twenty years more. How often I wondered how we at the church could keep her, with the modest salary the church was paying, when her professional skills, quick intelligence, impeccable judgment, and personality endowments could demand three times as much in an executive position in the business world. How often I wondered how she kept cheerful and patient and courageous in spite of the ruffled feelings and unreasonable demands and the touchiness she was always running into among all of us with whom she had to deal.

How did she do it? Gradually I learned it was because she was a genuine pilgrim of the future. She really believed that God is sovereign in this world and that Christ is the first, last, and upholding principle of this universe. She believed that the future was in his hands and she would always serve him. Like Michelangelo, she had seen as her task that of removing the unwanted material so Christ could emerge in human lives and human relationships, in church programs and service for both time and eternity.

But see also what becoming a pilgrim of the future means toward our comfort and consolation for the losses we inevitably suffer on this earthly pilgrimage. Teilhard de Chardin spoke often of the “forces of diminishment” that waylay us. We lose by death beloved members of our family and trusted friends. Such losses are irreplaceable. Are we overwhelmed by the devastat­ing diminishment we’ve suffered in our vulnerable little corner of the world?

Only a true pilgrim of the future can say with P.T. Forsyth as he wrote in This Life and the Next of the losses he had sustained: “I know that land beyond. Some of my people live there. Some have gone abroad on secret service there, which does not admit of communications. But I meet from time to time the commanding officer — the one in charge both here and there — and when I mention them to Him, He assures me all is well.”

Finally, how rich with meaning is the concept of pilgrims of the future for the whole Church and our responsibility for the Church’s emerging character in the future. How sad to read these days that statistics for the churches and denominations of America show that the congregations that are growing fastest are the narrowly dogmatic ones, those deeply rooted in their traditional past, still emphasizing their separateness and their differences from their Christian brethren from other traditions and refusing fellowship; while the congregations declining in numerical strength are those of an ecumenical spirit, open to new ideas and new people, and eager to serve contemporary needs with a relevant message and ministry.

The oldest Christian churches of Greece and Italy and Sicily show a strong Byzantine influence in their architecture and artistic symbolism, one of the most impressive features of which is the bright mosaic head of Christ set in the top of the center apse looking down on the people in worship. This pictorial mosaic in the Greek is called Christos Pancrator (Christ, Ruler over All). There before all worshipers, high above their heads, is the face of him through whom and for whom all things are.

In the consciousness of all Christ’s disciples, his lordship over all the Church must increase. Divisions that are separating walls between his people must be obliterated. Dogmatic distinctions that perpetuate hostilities and obscure his truth must fall.

Let Christ’s Church proclaim his gospel of the future. As Sproxton says of Teilhard’s message: “He who stands at the End is with you in the Process. He is Love, and love is the only power which can achieve the convergence and unity of all mankind.”

Sursum Corda. “Lift up your hearts!”