Suppose a friend shocks you with (very expensive) tickets to a concert of your favorite music group. The thrill chills are instant. The gratitude is overwhelming. The only problem is the date; the concert is still nine months away. Nine whole months to wait! You circle the date on your calendar. You count the days. You go online and buy a tour t-shirt to wear. You look at the tickets to be sure of the date (over and over again). You check to make sure you know where you put the shirt. Then you see your friend has bought VIP tickets, with a chance to meet the group after the show. Excitement soars! How many more days?
The Apostle Paul paints a vivid picture of our waiting to be rid of these bodies and be given our promised new ones. Here it is in the MESSAGE:
“. . . waiting does not diminish us, any more than waiting
diminishes a pregnant mother. We are enlarged in the waiting.
We, of course, don’t see what is enlarging us.
But the longer we wait, the larger we become,
and the more joyful our expectancy.”
Romans 8:23, MSG
While his words are pretty and emphasize our great joy, it’s obviously a guy’s description of the process and omits all mention of the gritty reality all mothers know too well. But we get the point. We’ve been promised an unearned and glorious reward, which, when we give it some thought, does seize us with ‘joyful expectancy.’ It’s the fulfillment of our salvation! The end of our struggles with temptation and weakness. No more discouragements. No more ‘two steps forward and one step backward.’ Here, again, is Paul’s description of the incredible event:
“But let me tell you something wonderful, a mystery. I’ll probably never fully understand. We’re not all going to die – but we are all going to be changed.
You hear a blast to end all blasts from a trumpet, and in the time that you look up and blink your eyes – it’s over. On signal from that trumpet from heaven, the dead will be up and out of their graves, beyond the reach of death, never to die again.
At the same moment and in the same way, we’ll all be changed.
In the resurrection scheme of things, this has to happen:
everything perishable taken off the shelves and replaced by the imperishable,
this mortal replaced by the immortal.”
1 Corinthians 15:51-54a, MSG
Just a slight step above concert tickets, and we get to meet Him! PD
