The Irrepressibility of Transcendence
Every so often a cultural moment captures my imagination, especially when an event or activity seems to paint, in plain view, a picture of greater spiritual realities.
The 2026 World Cup opening ceremony on June 12, 2026 was one of those moments.
As Korean-American singer EJAE and the Italian tenor Andrea Bocelli performed this year’s theme song - DNA (More Than a Game), I could not help but see the clear signpost and signal of greater divine realities.
The Image of God
The image of God speaks to the inherent dignity, value, and worth God ascribes to every human being. People also have remarkable resilience and vast potential power as image-bearers. The opening ceremony put that on full display.
EJAE seemed to have wasted her childhood and teenage years. She entered training with a K-Pop label at age 11, trained for a decade before she was dropped. Despite the loss of her dreams, she stayed in the game transitioning to songwriting and producing. Her unlikely breakthrough came while recording demo vocals, which led to her being cast as the main protagonist for a movie concept that became Netflix’s record-breaking movie, Kpop Demon Hunters.
Andrea Bocelli’s story began before his birth. Doctors advised his mother to terminate her pregnancy, warning he would be born with a disability. She refused and Andrea Bocelli was born with congenital glaucoma, later losing his eyesight after a soccer accident at the age of 12. He persevered, focusing on his education and teaching himself to play multiple instruments, including reading music in Braille. Bocelli’s breakthrough occurred when a demo of his vocals reached the legendary vocalist Luciano Pavarotti.
The image of God stamped on these two lives wasn’t subtle. It was blaring at full volume.
The Kingdom of God
The two singers performed surrounded by the flags of some of the participating nations. In fact, all 48 participating national flags were paraded in a display of global unity. Every nation was competing for its own pride, yet every nation was bound up in the larger unity of the human race.
Isn’t this a clear signpost of God’s Biblical agenda? God’s Kingdom plan from the beginning - to bless all the nations from one nation, unity and distinction? Isn’t the New Testament mandate to form a united spiritual entity consisting of disciples of all the nations? Isn’t the eternal future one in which John the Apostle looks and sees the gathering of the many nations united in worship to King Jesus?
“After this I looked, and there was a vast multitude from every nation, tribe, people, and language, which no one could number, standing before the throne and before the Lamb. They were clothed in white robes with palm branches in their hands. And they cried out in a loud voice: Salvation belongs to our God, who is seated on the throne, and to the Lamb!” (Revelation 7:9-10)
“Signals of Transcendence” and “Sehnsucht”
The sociologist Peter Berger described these something-beyond-everyday experiences as “signals of transcendence” in his 1969 book A Rumor of Angels. These “signals” are ordinary everyday experiences that point beyond the material world giving us a clue to a greater world.
These moments strike us when we’re inspired by the towering resilience of those who have experienced setback. We sense it when we see the beauty of distinct cultures yet a move towards loving unity. We hear it through the roar of a crowd in triumphant victory after a hard fought contest.
Something in us intuitively senses that we’re more than biochemicals - that history is a larger story moving towards a unifying end, and that we ache for a victor who will conquer and win on our behalf.
Sehnsucht is a German term championed by C.S Lewis which names and describes this inconsolable longing for a transcendent unknown, a profound yearning for a heavenly “something out there.”
God has put eternity in our hearts. If we will pay attention, we’ll find transcendence impossible to ignore.
