Friday, February 27, 2015

Standing in the Thunderstorm, Praising God!


Although you have not seen* him, you love him; and even though you do not see him now, you believe in him and rejoice with an indescribable and glorious joy, for you are receiving the outcome of your faith, the salvation of your souls.”  Vss. 8-9

Crap, crap, crap.  This voice, from two thousand years ago, is reaching out and grabbing me by the throat and reminding me of how freaking wonderful my faith is.  Personal epiphany and reminder of this faith I hold dear!  How does one share in a blog post that being reminded of the obvious can make the faith fun?

Part 2 of the couplet that started with ‘you have not seen him’.  Yes, Jesus has risen to the Father by the time of this writing.  He’s been gone anywhere from 3 to 30 years at this point.  “You do not see him now”.  Past to present, Jesus not in either.  The promise, however, is that we will see him in the future.

We believe in him and rejoice with an indescribable and glorious joy because we have the future promise of seeing him once more.  He came once, he’ll come again. 

Peter is naming the reality.  This is not salvation history, this is not the future of revelation of God’s plan, this is not some tricky theological discussion. 

Go back and watch the “Shawshank Redemption”, this is the moment when Tim Robbins is standing outside the prison walls, hands raised to the cleansing of the thunderstorm, knowing he is free.  This is Lt. Dan in “Forrest Gump”, the day after he was up on the mast of the shrimping boat, challenging God for all he was worth, and finding faith once again.

How do you describe what is indescribable?  How do you truly define ‘glorious’?  I can’t.  I only know that my faith resonates with what Peter is saying.  Does yours?

No comments:

Post a Comment