When Something Is About To Happen

December 4, 2018

When Something Is About To Happen

I say to you what I say to everyone: Watch!”

Mark 13: 37

         

"I'll tell you what keeps me coming to this church." The man who spoke was punching the air with his finger, pronouncing every word with force and the dozen or so other people in the room turned to listen. "I'll tell you," he said, "what keeps me coming to this church," and every head turned in his direction. "It's strange, I know, but I get the feeling here, like nowhere else, that something is about to happen."

The feeling that something is about to happen. The earliest Christians would have recognized this instantly as one of the truest marks of the church. They were convinced they stood on the edge of history, and that something was about to happen. For the world, time just moved on, but for the early Christian community, something was about to happen.

Because something was about to happen, every word they uttered, every deed they did, every prayer they prayed was shaped by faith in the coming of Christ. Today, those who trust in the promise of God's coming kingdom are also able to see advance signs of its coming all around them.

Every time Christians recite the creed, "He will come to judge the quick and the dead," we proclaim our hope that frail human justice, the kind one can get with a good lawyer and a full checkbook, is not all the justice life holds. Every time we bring clothing for the One Stop Center or food for those in need, we do so not because we are so naive as to think that a few used garments and a shelf of soup and cereal are going to end human need. We do so because we live today in the light of God's tomorrow, when all will be clothed in garments of light and the banquet table of the kingdom will hold a feast. Every time we speak words of forgiveness in circumstances of bitterness, words of love in situations of hatred, we are using, in the present, a language which the whole creation will learn to speak in God's tomorrow.

My Takeaway: I love how that man put it: "I get the feeling here, like nowhere else, that something is about to happen." That’s the way I want my church to be. How about you?

Sē’lah

Alex

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(Selah is a word that appears in the Book of Psalms that I often use as the Complimentary Closing in my correspondence. Its meaning, as I use the word, is to pause and think about these things.)

These meditations are written by Alex M. Knight as he seeks the life in Christ as his way of life.  The meditations are published on the BLOG, http://seekingthelifeinchrist.blogspot.com/ and they are also distributed on the Constant Contact email server. You may subscribe to this email service by sending an email to: amkrom812@gmail.com. The BLOG is also available on Amazon Kindle, by subscription.

Publications by Alex M. Knight:

·        Seeking the Life in Christ, Meditations on the New Testament and Psalms has been published and is now available at Amazon.com in paperback and Kindle.

·        The second edition of First Think – Then Pray is available on Amazon Kindle.

·        Meditations on The Story of My Life as told by Jesus Christ has been released as an e-book on Amazon Kindle.

Unless otherwise indicated, all Scripture quotations are taken from the Holy Bible, New International Version®, NIV® Copyright ©1973, 1978, 1984, 2011 by Biblica, Inc.® Used by permission. All rights reserved worldwide.