Orientation

by Doug Floyd
5/25/08

I fear that our generation is like a ship of sailors lost at sea who stare at the
water day after day to try and get their bearings. Looking out from their boat in
all four directions, they see water. They don’t lack water. But the endless fields
of water cannot show them where they are or where they are headed. Without some
orientation, they cannot navigate through this ocean of chaos.

Our generation enjoys news twenty-four hours a day both on television and on the
web. We can know virtually anything about anything with a click on the computer.
We can download sermons in every style and flavor. We can hear music, watch
movies, see college courses and learn almost anything through our computers and
TVs, and yet we grow more foolish, more blind, and more deaf.

We are stumbling in the dark and we cannot see what makes us stumble. We are a
dis-oriented and we live among dis-oriented people. So how do we regain proper
orientation? I thought I’d look up that word to try and understand what it really
means.

The root of the word orientation is orient (meaning east, rising sun), which comes
from the Latin oriri (meaning to rise, rising sun, to be born, to appear). The
root of the word makes me think about my beginning, my birth. I had a starting
point. I haven’t always been here. As Bruce Cockburn says, I’ve “never seen
everything.”

The Scripture reveals that I’ve been created in the image of God; that he formed
me in my inmost parts; that he knows me inside and out; that he created for His
good pleasure and glory; that in Him I live and move and have my being. So this
root of orientation makes me consider properly my beginning.

Orientation comes from orient and it is an architectural term that originally

indicated the way churches were built facing East (Jerusalem, Rising Son). The
medieval world looked to Jerusalem as the center of the world and the east
provided proper orientation. Their maps reflect this believe as east not north is
the top of the map (and Jerusalem is in the center of the map).

Medieval churches were built so that the altars faced the east. Thus every time
the people of God gathered to hear the Word of God and break the bread and drink
the wine, they faced east toward Jerusalem.

Eating the bread and drinking the wine was remembering the covenant of God with
His people made in the body of Jesus Christ. The Lord’s table was a way of looking
back to His death on the cross and looking forward to a meal that was to come: the
marriage supper of the lamb when all God’s people from across the ages would be
gathered together in a city of love. Their worship physically pointed them toward
the end of all things: New Jerusalem.

As I consider the rich history of this word orientation, I come to realize that
proper orientation requires us to understand our beginning from our end. John the
Apostle reveals this orientation point only in Jesus. He is the Alpha and the
Omega, the First and the Last, the Beginning and the End.

In his gospel, John also writes, “All things were made through Him, and without
Him nothing was made that was made.” So we look to Jesus as the author and
finisher of our faith. Only then can we discover an orienting point.
So when we try to make sense of our lives and make decisions about the future or
even try to understand the past, we cannot ignore Jesus as the center point. To
ignore Him is to misunderstand. To ignore Him is to stumble in the dark.

I realize that this must sound insane to those who reject Him. Paul suggested that
it is foolishness to the world. So I will be a fool in this world by orienting my
life according to the fixed point, the person of Jesus Christ.

It is not the newspaper or the web or even the latest Christian book that will
give me bearings in this ocean of chaos but the slow, intentional turning of my
mind and heart to Jesus. By His Spirit, the Bible becomes an ever fuller unveiling
of Jesus. Like the disciples on the road to Emmaus, I am gradually learning to see
and hear my Savior.

And just as the sailor who uses longitude and latitude to move through the sea, I
turn my eyes to Him in His Word, His commands, His people. Most of my steps
forward still appear unclear like walking across choppy waves as far as the eye
can see. But I rest that He is leading the way, and I will arrive at the New
Jerusalem in time for the feast.