The Highest Judge…And Skips

Yesterday, musing on Keith and Kristyn Getty’s song ‘There is a higher throne’, reminded me of the song from the musical ‘Carousel’:

Take me beyond the pearly gates,
Through a beautiful marble hall,
Take me before the highest throne
And let me be judged by the highest judge of all!…

Fairground worker Billy Bigelow falls in love with millworker Julie Jordan… both lose their jobs. Discovering that Julie’s pregnant, Billy participates in a robbery to provide for Julie and their unborn child.

The robbery goes badly wrong, Billy commits suicide, and his spirit is taken to the heavenly doorman ‘Starkeeper’. Defiant, Billy demands to see ‘The highest judge of all’…

This morning a skip has been delivered. Some work is to be done in our back garden that we shall grandly call a ‘patio’. Soil and rubbish need to be taken away….

Skips are good:– disposing of the broken, redundant or useless. Items that ‘might come in useful one day’ – but haven’t in 30 years – need to be ‘skipped’, taken away and never seen again.

It’s true in other aspects of my life – there are attitudes, failings and habits that I need to put in a skip. There is also fear, anxiety, guilt, shame, insecurity… that needs to be identified, skipped and taken away…

Billy returns to earth, some years later, invisible to Julie and their daughter Louise. In a wonderful resolution to the story, past failures are forgiven; there’s love that’s not ended or restricted by death; there’s atonement and redemption for Billy, Julie and Louise.  

Musing, I pray with King David: ‘Have mercy on me, O God, according to your unfailing love, according to your great compassion blot out my transgressions. Wash away all my iniquity and cleanse me from my sin..’ …take my personal rubbish away in your skip.

Encountering the ‘Highest Judge of All’ I rediscover a love that’s stronger than death and personal atonement and redemption.