Running Up That Hill 

13/07/2022
 

Sincere apologies to anyone who has only just managed to get Kate Bush's newly revived song out of their heads - but it cannot have escaped your notice that this classic 80s anthem is quite literally everywhere right now... 37 years after it's original release!
 
And it also may or may not have escaped your notice that it's become the in-song right now (becoming the number one record and smashing all kinds of world records in the process!) because of that scene in that show...
 
That show being, of course, the Netflix global phenomena that is Stranger Things.
 
Now, a quick word to the wise here - Stranger Things is not for the faint of heart... It's creators, the Duffer brothers, are self-confessed super-fans of classic horror films, and their story weaves together many different elements of these to create a world of, well, stranger things. 
  

When Hawkins really is Bizarre...

 
The action takes place back in the 80s in the fiction town of Hawkins... We are introduced to this world via a group of kids - slash teenagers as the sprawling series continues - who are brilliantly cast in the roles they have really come to inhabit. Really and truly, the main focus of the show is on their relationships as they discover a mysterious hidden dimension that exists underneath their hometown.
 
Being huge Dungeons and Dragons fanatics, the kids simply call this place: The Upside Down. This other dimension is no longer content to remain hidden, people start to disappear and get trapped in the Upside Down. Stranger Things by name, Stranger Things by nature...
 
Now, if you've not seen the show and planning of a major binge - please be assured that you are in safe hands with me... you are now entering a spoiler-free zone, I promise!
 

A Hope in Hell... 

In the latest series of Stranger Things, one of the main characters gets caught in this terrifying Upside Down dimension, and comes face to face to with a character described as "an undead creature of great power": the "General" of all the dark creatures of this evil realm. At a pivotal moment this character turns and sprints with all their might in an attempt to escape being lost in there forever. It's at that moment when Kate Bush's song begins to pound:

And if I only could
I'd make a deal with God
And I'd get Him to swap our places
Be running up that road
Be running up that hill
Be running up that building
Say, if I only could...

KATE BUSH (1985)

 
I must admit, I can find it rather surreal to be strolling around a shop and rather than hearing the latest offers they got on, it's deals with God being sung about! :) But, as deals go... you have to admit it sounds a little too good-to-be-true right?

Swapping places with God... who wouldn't be running up that hill?

That's why the chorus starts and ends with the words: "And if I only could..."
  
If...
Only...
  

Bargaining Power?

The truth is though that when it comes to doing a deal with God you'd have to wonder what on earth (quite literally "on earth"!) we would have to offer Him? The All-Powerful, All-Sufficient, All-Knowing, Creator of the Cosmos... if He needed anything of ours - well, He made it in the first place, so it's kind of on loan to us anyway and He could just claim it back if He wanted to! And if it didn't exist yet, He could just create it... with a mere word!

And even if there was something He somehow needed from us - He is not just a being supreme power and authority, He is also the God of Absolutely Purity - complete, perfect holiness just constantly radiates from Him! Nothing unclean can even enter His Perfect Presence. So even our best work, done by our best people, on our best day would fall far short of the standard required. 
 
Standing before Him, we are totally bankrupt - physically, morally and in ever other possible way absolutely dwarfed by This Supreme God. 
 
The mere idea that we could somehow bargain with Him, like some kind of Cosmic Wizard of Oz is ludacrious on a rather epic scale! 
 
Psalm 50 makes this painfully clear:

"Listen, my people, and I will speak;
I will testify against you, Israel: I am God, your God.
I bring no charges against you concerning your sacrifices or concerning your burnt offerings, which are ever before me.
I have no need of a bull from your stall or of goats from your pens,
for every animal of the forest is mine, and the cattle on a thousand hills.
I know every bird in the mountains, and the insects in the fields are mine.
If I were hungry I would not tell you, for the world is mine, and all that is in it.
Do I eat the flesh of bulls or drink the blood of goats?"

PSALM 50.7-12

The Never-Ending Story...

And yet deep in the depths of ever human heart, the longing remains - it sneaks out and expresses itself in all kinds of song lyrics, artwork, books, movies, and more: "If only I could..." ..."If only..." 

If only God could see life from down here and understand my struggles, my pain, my limitations...
If only God could get why I want what I'm asking for in prayer He'd be moved to honour my requests...
And if only I could run up that hill - and know something of a God-like place in life - above the struggles and the strains and the stresses and the selfishness...
"I'd be running up that hill with no problems..." 

If only God knew my life from down here... and if only I knew God's life up there...
 

An Even Stranger Thing... the Exchanger King...

And yet, it a twist that no-one have predicted - God does precisely that... He swaps places with us, becomes an actual living breathing human being - comes and lives as one of us, and right here among us!
 
Our limited human understanding and language has wrestled with this for two millenia now, making it's way into many songs from catchy pop anthems to Christmas Carols:

"What if God was one of us? Just a slob like one of us?
Just a stranger on the bus trying to make His way back home..."

 

JOAN OSBORN

"Veiled in flesh the Godhead see - Heil the incarnate deity
Pleased as man with man to dwell - Jesus, our Immanuel!" 

CHARLES WESLEY

But unsurprisingly, the Bible (inspired by the Holy Spirit Himself) captures it best: 

"In the Beginning was the Word and the Word was with God and the Word was God...
And the Word became flesh and dwelt among us and we have seen His glory, 
The Glory as of the One and Only - full of grace and truth!"

JOHN 1.1, 14-15

Christ Jesus: Who, being in very nature God,
    did not consider equality with God something to be used to his own advantage;
rather, He made Himself nothing
by taking the very nature of a servant,
being made in human likeness.
And being found in appearance as a man,
He humbled Himself
by becoming obedient to death -
even death on a cross!

PHILLIPPIANS 2.5-8

 
But the question doesn't go away - in fact the more we understand of who God is, (and who we are in comparison), the question becomes even louder... "Why would He do this for us?" 

Well the truth is that although God doesn't do deals - He does make an offer to each and every human soul... to allow Him to swap places with you. Because God is a God of pure holiness, He cannot leave sin unpunished, His justice must be served. Sin cannot abide in His Presence and so we cannot hope to approach Him as we are... we are simply disqualified. Left ourselves we could only expect a fate far worse than the Upside Down.

But there is good news - in fact the word "good" doesn't really begin to cover it. Jesus came to stand in our place - He went walking up a hill called Calvary, and there on the cross He accepted the worst punishment any human being could ever endure:

"My God, my God, why have you forsaken me?"

MATTHEW 27.46

Forsaken. 

Because He willingly offered His perfect life in our place - the punishment for all our wrong doing can be laid upon His shoulders... that's what Jesus came to do, because that is who He is and that is how much He loves you. He was forsaken so that you could be forgiven. He paid the price, He took your place, He made a way...
 
All I can do is to implore you - when the time comes don't think you can stand there before God and do a deal.
You can't.
None of us can.
No amount of trying to be good, or lists of lines that we've never crossed, or religious duties we can tick off can meet His standard, or change the fact of our guilt.
And there will be no hope of deceiving Him either - He already knows our record...
 
But the One who knows you the most also loves you the most and wants to take your place... and I cannot imagine a single reason not to run towards the One who ran up that hill so that you wouldn't have to stand alone. Don't let shame stop you, or pride, or fear - all of them will seem so petty and pathetic when that moment comes. If it's doubt that's stopping you - then let me implore you again, keep seeking, keep asking, keep reading, keep listening, keep talking because He has promised that we will find Him when we seek Him with all of our hearts! (JEREMIAH 29:13)

Don't live with an "if only" - when Jesus, God's One and Only Son, holds before you the greatest offer, beyond your wildest imaginations and greater than any deal you could ever hope to make. He's the only one who can turn all of our "if onlys" completely upside down!