The Divine Discovery

You are an explorer deep in the uncharted recesses of the Brazilian jungle, tracing along a tree-covered tributary of the dangerous Amazon river. You have braved wildlife, guerilla armies, the harsh terrain, and even pockets of the unreached indigenous tribe known as the Yanomamo Indians. Further and further you go, days upon days, sweaty and sore and skin marked by poisonous vegetation, thorns, gnats and mosquitoes, fungi from the damp conditions.

You are cut off from the outside world. Nobody would ever find you out here if you were to be killed or become fatally lost. Weeks into your trek, the jungle seems without end, each arduous mile similar to the last. You climb and descend, wade and forge, scramble and scurry. One foot in front of the other, eyes weary but alert, you hear the slight hush of the waterfall long before you reach it. Your pace quickens.

As the dense underbrush gives way, you eventually stumble out into a rare clearing and discover a silver cascade roaring down a rocky slide. The afternoon sun gleams through the emerald leaves of the forest and gives the reflective water a colorful sheen.

You can't help yourself: you wade into the water, braving whatever ravenous fish or snakes may lurk within. The water sparkles. Wading up to your waist closer and closer to the waterfall you notice a gleam of something that lay beyond the beautiful curtain. Should you stick your head in? You do. There is a recess there, a cave.

You climb over the rocks, the water pummeling your neck and head, and squeeze through into an opening in the rock wall behind the falls that could not have been carved just the by the water itself. The cave goes further into the side of the hill and you leave the waterfall behind you, taking delicate, careful steps on the wet floor. Venturing deeper and deeper, the light through the watery mouth of the cave dims, so you turn on your flashlight (crank-powered, naturally) and when you turn a corner, your jaw drops.

The bend in the tunnel in the cave in the mountainside opens into an enormous room. There is golden furniture everywhere, inlaid with jewels. Tables and chairs, altars and lampstands, all pure, solid gold, all adorned with rubies and diamonds and emeralds. What is this place? Who made it? Why is it here? Some of the material glows with an otherworldly aura, as if harvested eons ago from some interstellar gemological vein and transported to this place by some priestly extraterrestrial's sacred hands. Could this have been manufactured by primitive peoples? Surely not. The room is simultaneously advanced and primordial. It is another dimension.

It begs belief. Are you hallucinating? Is it a dream? How...? Why...?
What. in. the. world?

You've found it. You had no idea it was there, but you found it. And you may die the last one to see it. You may die just thinking about it! It's like discovery of fire. An unexplainable, incomparable wonder builds up in your heart, you feel that you may explode with joy. Bewildering, exultant, dazzled, staggering bliss!

This is what daily rediscovery of the gospel is, can be, ought to be like.

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