Like a bat out of hell…

Searching for truth?  Could be a long journey!  Journey with me.  Journey with me into three gardens.  One a long, long time ago.  One a long time ago.  The third?  Today.

Eden.  Gethsemane.  This present madness.

In Eden we find the sad truth of the beauty of creation shattered by broken relationship.  In Gethsemane we find the beauty of relationships restored.  The truth?  Restored by the brokenness of a man on a cross.  Today’s truth?  The broken garden according to Jim Steinman: the ‘truth’ is found where the sirens are screaming and the fires are howling way down in the valley tonight.  Where there's a man in the shadows with a gun in his eye and a blade shining oh so bright.  Where there's evil in the air and there's thunder in the sky.  And a killer's on the bloodshot streets.  The truth is down in the tunnel where the deadly are rising.  The truth is with a young boy down in the gutter starting to foam in the heat.

But the song continues with an exquisite note of the prophetic.  The truth is about “the only thing in this whole world that's pure and good and right.  And wherever you are and wherever you go there's always gonna be some light.”

Three gardens.  Each with more than their share of brokenness.  Each with more than their share of darkness.  The truth we’re looking for?  The “truth” is the light that shines in the darkness of the broken garden (John 1:5).

Steinman again: “Nothing really rocks, and nothing really rolls, and nothing’s ever worth the cost.”  The cost was a broken man on a cross.  The truth is us flying like a bat out of hell into the arms of the One who carries us from brokenness and darkness into healing and into pure light.  His sacrifice was worth the cost.

Jesus.  The only thing in this whole world that's pure and good and right, and wherever He is and wherever He goes, there's always gonna be some light.