Photo courtesy of Kevin Bridge |
“I told you I'd be back,”
the customer said to me, now ready to come through my line at the
grocery store.
With business a little slow at that
hour on a Sunday morning I'd been standing at the end of my lane,
looking for people who might be ready to check out. I had spotted the
man earlier, and had tried to wave him in as he passed by, but
apparently he wasn't finished shopping yet. With one more item yet to
pick up in the far end of the store, he pointed in that direction as
he pushed on, saying, “I'll be back!”
True to his word, there he was. His
order was quickly processed and he went on his way, but the words he
said echoed loudly in my mind, to the point that I grabbed a scrap of
paper and wrote them down.
“I told you I'd be back.”
Maybe because it was a Sunday morning
and I was sensitive to missing church, his words to me were more than
just a casual comment after crossing the last item off his shopping
list. They were a reminder of a spiritual scenario in which we are
all participants, whether we're aware of it or not.
When Jesus was gathered with His
disciples the last time before His crucifixion, He tried to explain
to them that He was leaving for a time, but would return. They didn't
understand. He said that He was going away to prepare a place for
them, and that He would come back for them, so that they would be
together once more.
Since that day, Christians everywhere
have been awaiting the fulfillment of that promise. I've noticed,
however, that we wait in different ways. Truly, some of us have quit
looking for His return altogether, much as I did the customer who
walked away from me to get the last item on his list. Out of sight,
out of mind, and I quickly forgot about him, until there he stood
some time later at the end of my lane once more. And so do we simply
carry on with the duties of our days, loving God and living out our
days to the best of our abilities, but no longer really expecting Him
to return to our world before we leave it and join Him in His.
Others of us, however, are in a hurry
to get out of here, to leave the trials and troubles of our earthly
existence behind, to check out of this life and get on with the
better life promised in the next one – no sorrow, no pain...just
joy unspeakable and full of glory. We look for God to come back as
impatiently as do the customers in line behind someone who forgot
that one item he absolutely has to have! Off he dashes to get it
while everybody behind him groans in unison at the delay. They busy
themselves for a minute or two looking about them and checking their
phones, but after a while every head is turned in the direction the
errant customer went, muttering, “Where is he?”, their
eyes searching the aisle for the first sight of his bobbing head,
hurrying in return.
The truth is that God is busy crossing
items off a list, as well...not food items, but the names of our
friends and neighbors. He is busy looking for the last of the lost
souls that were invited to the Marriage Supper of the Lamb but have
yet to make their commitment to attend. If your loved one's name is
on that list, then you are grateful for the patience of the Father
Who longs with all His heart for every one of His children to make it
Home for the feast.
That doesn't mean we just stand idly by
in the meantime. Unlike the other customers in my line, we, too, have
work to do to hasten the process along. We should be about the
Father's business, but with an open eye and an ear cocked to hear the
trumpet's call when the guest list is complete and the Hall is
filled. He expects us to be watchfully waiting, as He told His
disciples when they pressed Him for details about the timing of His
return. He told them to look for the signs of His coming in the world
around them.
There are a multitude of strange and
unusual phenomena happening around us these days. Arctic snowy owls
are spotted in Florida, of all places, while bears not yet in
hibernation because of the warm weather wander on ski slopes empty of
people because there has been no snow. Devastating extremes in
weather conditions bake our hometowns in heat and drought, wash them
away in record-breaking floods or bury them in overwhelming snow. Are
these simply the result of cyclic changes in weather and animal
population patterns, or are they something more? At the very least
they should remind us to be looking for the signs of the end of the
age that Jesus said would signal His soon return, that we might not
be caught unawares.
My Sunday morning customer's sudden
reappearance startled me, I admit. He looked at me with a question in
his eyes, a tilt to his head and a slight smile on his lips, as if
perplexed at my reaction.
“I told you I'd be back.”
Jesus said “...raise
your eyes and observe the fields and see how they
are already white for harvesting” (John 4:35, emphasis
mine)...words to live by, that His return doesn't likewise
take me by surprise.
“Therefore keep
watch, because you do not know on what day your Lord will come...So
you also must be ready, because the Son of Man will come at an hour
when you do not expect him.”
(Matthew 24:42,44 NIV)
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