Hello,
There has been a sign posted on the winding road of which I have written
that I take to and from work. The
sign, “Road To Be Oiled Next Week”.
This sign has been posted for three weeks; meaning that “Next Week” has
already become “This Week” and even “Last Week.” As I drive to work tomorrow, if the road is still unoiled
then “This Week” will also become “Last Week”, and “Next Week” will take its
place as “This Week”, and still the road remains unworked.
I don’t know if they repair roads in the same way throughout the
country, but here in Pennsylvania they do a thing called “tar and chip”. First, a layer of tar, or oil, is
sprayed on the crumbling asphalt, and then a layer of small gravel is spread
across the oil. Over the next
couple of weeks as the road is driven upon, the gravel settles into the tar,
and voila….a reconditioned road.
The end product is actually a pretty nice surface on which to ride, but
the application is messy and traffic clogging. Sometimes when you drive over the fresh application the tar
gets on your tires and splashes up on your car, and remember that the entire
road is a two lane road, so traffic is always stopped by flaggers creating
lengthy waits. So, the signs are a
warning to drivers…..”go a different way next week.”
That is what I did for the first week and a half until I discovered that
the signs were not precise. Since
then, I have taken to my normal route, wondering if this week might be actually
be “this week” making next week actually “next week”.
One of the tenets of the Christian faith is the second coming of Christ
at which time the recreating work of God will come to eternal completion and
the veil between the divine and creation/creature will be fully gone. During the early days of the Christian
faith, many thought that Jesus’ return would be imminent, and its delay created
quite a dilemma for believers. As
time has passed, instead of coming to an end, the fact of the delay has not
created quandaries, but instead it has caused some people to turn their efforts
toward predicting the day of Jesus’ second coming.
Those of you who were alive at the turn of the millennium may remember
the predictions of the return of Jesus with the turn of the calendar page (all
of which proved wrong). Others of
you may well remember the captivating power of the “Left Behind” series that
led some (out of fear, not out of
faith) to get their lives in salvific order, and led others to mock the
Christian faith for what seemed to be such a judgmental and arrogant
message. Even now there are those
who are investing themselves in the doings of the state of Israel, thinking
(wrongly in my reading of the Bible) that the current state of Israel has a
defining place in the second coming of Jesus.
Way back in the 1500’s Martin Luther was alleged to have answered the
question, “What would you do today if you knew that tomorrow Jesus would come
again?”, by saying, “Today, I
would plant a tree.” Which I hear
as, “Why would I live today differently than I would any other day?” For Christians every day is full of the
forgiving presence of God propelling them with grace and mercy into a fragile,
frail and fractured world.
When will “Next Week” come and my road will be fixed? I don’t know. So, in the mean time I plan to continue taking the path that
I have daily driven, thankful for the short cut it provides, taking in the
beauty of the woods and the vistas, enjoying the thrills of the hills and the
turns…….and when the day comes that the tar and stone trucks come, I’ll deal
with the change that it creates.
Likewise as I await the day of Jesus’ return (a day that overextends the
width and depth of my imagination) I will strive to keep on the path that I
have daily taken….thankful for the shepherding care of Jesus, taking in the
vistas of his grace, mercy and peace, and enjoying the thrills of the hills and
turns along the way…..confident that the grace of God will likewise guide me
into whatever lies ahead when Jesus comes again.
What would you do today if you knew Jesus was coming again
tomorrow? Why not join Martin
Luther and me……and plant a tree!
Talk to you “Next Week’….Have a great week.
God’s grace and peace, (ggap)
Pastor Jerry Nuernberger
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