The Rider’s Return

The year was — well, that doesn’t matter too much. The year wasn’t yet. That is, it’s not when you’re reading this. That’s what you need to know. The year isn’t when you’re reading this and the year is ahead of you. I think that’s how you moved through time if I remember correctly (not that my memory needs to be jogged). I was — or should I say, I am? I could even say, will be, but that wouldn’t be helpful since you only move through time linearly (and much of your literature is focused on trying to move forward and back through it, as if those were the best directions!). You see, we hold time now. You will too eventually. You must know that, especially since this letter exists and you’re reading it. But that’s beside the point for now. For your sake, I’ll say, was. Yes, I’ll say, was — I was standing on the bridge I always stand on. You know, the one connecting the library to the museum, right by the railroad tracks. I was standing on the bridge I always stand on in the evening time and that’s when we heard The First Sound. And by “we,” I mean everybody. And when I say “everybody,” I mean that quite literally. No one knew where the sound was coming from, so we all looked up (because that’s what you do when you don’t know what to do). 

The pink sky trembled and seemed to undergo a strange and needed surgery. Clouds appeared to be coming and going at the same time, as if they couldn’t decide whether to recede or draw close. New ones were popping up across the horizon while others were vanishing quickly. The hue of the sky deepened, yet it seemed like everything was getting brighter. One spot high above the clouds, closer over to the train station, ripped like fabric. But not in a tragic way, like you would feel if your favorite sweater snagged on a hook and tore. It was a ripping like when you open a much anticipated gift. And you must also know the ripping wasn’t from the outside; it was from within, where we were, where we’d been waiting, as if it had been waiting too, with greater eagerness than we had ever shown. The ripping made a fantastic reverberation that pulsed through the air, though that wasn’t the sound which brought the world to a halt. It was marvelous, to be sure, but The First Sound was the blast that came through the rip. The resonance was of something other worldly, or perhaps what our world had always tried to produce. It was a mixture of a weighty synth and laughter and a sword being unsheathed and the beginning of something wonderful. Its notes were triumphant and vengeful, clear and very much the sound I’d been waiting to hear my whole life.

The First Sound made everything stop. Everything had to, really. We couldn’t carry on with whatever we were doing even if we wanted to, not only because it was overwhelmingly loud, but because it was overwhelmingly beautiful, terrifyingly so. The First Sound demanded an arrest not just of cars and bikes and trains and conversations and transactions, but of absolutely everything. All other movements ceased needing to progress. Wars and romance, heroism and politics, business and philosophizing, scandals and heists, feuds and adventures, seasons and migrations, currents and cycles. Anything which fought to secure life, anything the heart could long for — it all stopped moving because The Rider returned. Yes, The Rider returned to reveal who he is, and the whole universe stood at attention. 

You were standing on the bridge you— I mean, I was standing on the bridge I always stand on, and that’s where I saw him. He was at the center of it all, leading the charge, surrounded by beings who were too bright to see at first but then gradually became more visible, like the world does when your eyes adjust to a sunny day after being in the dark. To describe them to you now wouldn’t benefit you, so I won’t do that (though I know you want me to). Suffice it to say when I saw them, I could tell they’d been gazing at The Rider for some time. The First Sound came from all of them, who they were and what they carried, but mainly from The Rider. 

To say I was surprised would be an understatement, yet at the same time, it’s what I was always expecting. Because he had promised this, hadn’t he? The feeling of finding a friend after being separated for a long time welled up inside of me. “Brother!” he yelled at me. After standing in complete shock for some time and realizing he was indeed speaking to me, I recognized the longing within me to yell it back, to acknowledge that level of relationship, to say it was true of us. But I didn’t dare speak back that title to him (you’ll understand soon enough). However, that was the moment I began to change, and that was my response.

The Rider surveyed the land and then let out a magnificent shout, like a haka, guttural and frightening. I didn’t know what he was saying exactly, but I could easily gather he was letting out a war cry. He was signaling to everyone that what he wanted to do was about to happen regardless of any resistance. His horse stomped her hooves in the sky, sending out wave after pounding wave of wind, which increased the scattering and gathering of the clouds. That’s when we heard the Second Sound.

The Second Sound was a shout, not from above, but a rumbling from deep within the earth. It sounded as if it had been buried for generations, ancient and memorialized, brewed and steeped in the soil. Though different than anything I had ever heard, it was oddly familiar and kin to my own voice. Everyone standing on the bridge looked at each other for some type of explanation, but no one had anything to offer. So we waited. The shout grew louder and rose up and up and met The Rider’s war cry, latching onto it like a harmony perfectly synced. 

I looked at The Rider’s face and a certain passion, yes, even longing, fell upon his expression. I perceived what looked like tears flow from his eyes and in them I saw a reflection of colors I’d never seen before. His cry grew louder, more zealous, and I soon became embarrassed. His raw emotion made me uncomfortable, because I had never matched it, never made room for that type of compassion. He searched fervently for the emergence of those who made The Second Sound. His horse stomped to and fro and everyone felt the tug and heave of birth pains as we waited for The Rider to be united with the object of his affection and suffering. When it seemed like we would all be enveloped in the tumult of his anticipation, a sudden stillness blanketed the earth. The Rider stopped calling out and his horse stopped pawing. The host of beings in the air and those of us on the bridge also waited, leaning in, listening. Hush and rest finally overcame our lives, and I felt a peace tangible and plentiful in the air. Just then, a magnificent yell erupted all around us, breaking the silence in a way we all wanted it to. Those who made The Second Sound had appeared at last. 

I looked around me, at the roads across the water and at the trees across the way, and I then understood. I cried and I cried and I cried. I shuddered with fear and I melted with joy. The earth reacted in a like manner, crumbling and parting in a seismic dance. The crumbling was not destructive, like what you know of an earthquake. Instead it was much more of a shaking that began bringing everything into its place, moving away what was a hindrance, and making way for what needed to be heard. And as the earth unfolded and the changing of everything loomed in the air, The Rider rejoiced, because those who shouted were the poor. Yes, The Second Sound was the shout of the poor and of the weak, the mournful and the orphan, the widowed and the humble, the oppressed and the wrongfully convicted, the slave and the prisoner — all those who did not love their lives even until death. It was the shout from those who had committed justice into another’s hands and now saw those hands rise in power. They walked with their eyes fixed on The Rider, who, with his gaze, exalted them to prominence above those of us still on the ground. They rejoiced with tears and dance and festal shouts, because they had waited for this moment, and now they, the meek, were to inherit the earth. We couldn’t help but join in with their celebration. Their shouts were contagious, and theirs was the sound that drowned out all dismay within me. We clapped and congratulated them as they marched in ascension, and the celebratory mood spread throughout the streets and on the bridge and around the city.

Once the fullness of the procession reached The Rider, they handed him a cup, a heavy one that took many hands to lift. It was overflowing with wine, and when The Rider grabbed it, his eyes flashed with fire. Everybody saw it. Yes, everybody. The flame within them was utterly petrifying and glorious, much like what you’ve always wanted to see and also the very thing you’ve been most afraid of. The birds in the air began cawing and flapping their wings vehemently. Dogs and other domesticated animals seemingly became, well, undomesticated and offered up barks and howls of their own (this is to say nothing of the tantrum and ruckus that came from the zoo). Hordes of wild birds plunged through the rip in the sky and started circling the city, concentrating their low swoops just east of the main square. I must pause here and give a warning. I cannot explain everything now, but I am allowed to write this much: you will be offended by The Rider at this moment. As much as you love him and have given him allegiance in your days, all that has ever pulled you towards the darkness, towards self-exaltation, towards low joys and hidden feasts, will make its last effort to win you over. Here is my advice, and if this be the sole purpose of this letter then let it be so: bow quickly. You will be shocked at how, even in that glorious hour, the temptation to hold on to what you have known of life and to disdain The Rider deceptively lures you in. Kneel and confess who he is once again. His sword is swift. The fire in his eyes is the fire of recompense, and there is coming a time when he will no longer restrain it. Now, I must continue to say how the rest happened.

What came next was The Split. Those of us on the ground watching everything unfold suddenly had this collective sense that our time was up. The time we had to do something with our lives while The Rider was not yet revealed — the opportunity to create during the day, to invest and to give away, to help the one who could never repay, to establish roots and build when the odds were against such small, hopeful movements — was finished. What was done was done. There was no longer any room for preparation. That dimension of time culminated and took a seat, giving opportunity for other facets of time to emerge (of which we will have to discuss in another letter). He was here, and now we would have to give an account of our lives. I heard some begin to shout in a way that matched the Second Sound, making a most valiant chord, while others began wailing frantically, which made a horrible dissonance. It was those who did not immediately bow that wailed. Maybe it was because they were filled with regret and became claustrophobic around the poor. Or maybe they didn’t want to bow. Or maybe they wailed because they knew they would bow, and that by The Rider’s sword. Whatever the reason was, their bitter weeping pierced the air like arrows and made me shiver like I was cold, though I really wasn’t.

A stirring in the water took place once the wailing started. The last thing I wanted to do was look away from The Rider, but it seemed necessary if I were to fully look upon him later. I turned to see what was in the water under the bridge, and I saw The Accuser. He was an absence of space, colors receding, a blur, a negative piece of reality. I felt a downwards pull, gravity weighing on me from inside my soul, like the heaviest of news bearing ill report about those whom you love, or like light shut out and replaced with toil and shame and bricks. All I could do was call upon The Rider’s name, and when I did, what we now call The Passing of the Age was underway. The library behind me exploded and all its books came rushing out, swirling around as if the wisdom of man carried no weight. The earth trembled and buildings around the city, the ones you thought would always be there, collapsed, and others, the ones you thought should’ve fallen long ago, stood tall (because as I’ve said, this is not like the earthquakes you know). I could see bushes and vines and flowers shooting upwards. The collision was so very unfamiliar and wonderful. At one point, in the midst of the ruckus, I saw my own family approach me. First was my mother, yelling the way one would while marching into the strongest headwind, yelling what sounded like a name but in a language I didn’t know. Then my sister and my brothers and my father followed. We all held hands and I knew what was happening but I couldn’t believe it yet. I could see the light of The Rider moving over us, like a bright orb full of lightning. I looked at my family and proclaimed, “World without end! World without end!” I started to rise off the ground into the air, and I so desperately longed that my family would too. And they did. First my mother, then my sister and then my brothers and then my father, we all began ascending to meet Him. I was overjoyed. I had one of those doubtful thoughts as it was happening, and then I said to myself, “It’s so real that you can still doubt.” Nevertheless, I shouted out again, “Our real life is now going to begin! Our real life is now going to begin!” That’s the moment doubt left me for good. We were coming closer to The Rider and I was ready for a new life to begin. He was drawing us in. It was loud, deafeningly loud. And I had the feeling that I was waking up.

Then I— no, then you and your family (the time is short; please let me speak plainly about this story now, for after all, it is yours) and the poor and the righteous were brought to him: The Rider, the Jewish Man from Nazareth, the one who came to dwell with us in an oppressed people group, God broken and God put back together. You saw him as he is and recognized that it felt a lot less like the end of the world and more like the start of a wedding. Most people were shocked to realize the assembly was coming back down to the earth (for it was a welcoming, not a departure). But you were glad to see it, and so were the poor. But The Rider stayed exalted, since retribution was still at hand. And there he was, and is, lifted up above the ruthless city, at peace between sky and land, with a violent whirlwind of victory circling him. His arms were stretched out in both invitation and command, embrace and wrath. He was wrapped in cloths of white linen, shrouds of unabashed resurrection, covering his body up to his face, his face which was set on you with eyes of blue fire that declared his nature. Terrible majesty! This is your friend who you’ve laid your head on, confessing and sharing secrets and laughter and questions. But in this moment, yes, in this moment you can only gaze upon him from where you are as he shows you more of who he is. He is the one weeding out worms and beasts from their hidden dens of destruction, where they had nestled and invaded the human heart and families and good efforts and systems. He is the one who has come to carve justice into the face of the Accuser, that great Oppressor who tore apart the fabric of our hopes and would start with the poor. Yes, always starting with the poor. He is the one uprooting Leviathan and his claws and scales from the dirt and watery depths (his tail was wrapped around the Middle East, his body slithering through Northern Africa and out of Morocco, into Western Europe until it coiled into Scandinavia and laid over the North Sea, through the Americas, bundling up somewhere in Ecuador and further north again where the head lay in the Great Lakes). He is the one cleansing the earth from its curse that had seeped into water, soil, seed, crop and skin. He is the one accomplishing this in fiery vengeance by his very presence as he gazes, yes, as he gazes back at you in complete sovereignty. He is the storm itself, the force of light who speaks the word of destruction to dark rulers and to that Serpent. All of this was glory revealed, but you will not (no, indeed, I will not) get over the weightiness of the reality that you were standing on the bridge you always stand on when he called you “brother.”

Holy, holy, holy, is The Rider.