We Know Not When

 

“I never saw it coming.”     I suspect that you have said that phrase before or heard it said before.  You never saw it coming that a friend died that day… or that you lost your job or the company was closing… or some other experience that was sudden and shocking.  There are many things in life that are predictable-   that a couple we know that has been dating or been together for years finally decides to get married…. or that in a few weeks the trees and bushes will begin to bud or flower.    We expect those things.    But then again, there come those things in life that we do know are coming.   

There are some global events that folks did not see coming.   My Dad would tell the story about that Sunday afternoon when he and his parents heard the news about the Japanese attack at Pearl Harbor.    My Dad was still a boy in those days, and even his adult parents did not see that coming.     I still remember that Tuesday morning when I heard the news about planes flying into the twin towers of the World Trade Center in New York City and a plane doing the same at the Pentagon in suburban Washington DC.   I did not see it coming, nor did any of the people in those buildings on that September day.   

There are some things in our faith as Christians we will not see coming.    That is a part of what Jesus gets at in the words of Matthew 24: 36-37 where we read:  

³⁶ “No one knows when that day and hour will come^[a]—neither the heavenly angels nor the Son,^[b] but only the Father, ³⁷ because just as it was in Noah’s time, so it will be when the Son of Man comes. 

We know that God came.    Why, God came in a form that took all humanity by surprise-  as a tiny baby born to a teenage peasant girl named Mary.      We spent days celebrate that coming just weeks ago.     We also know that God will come again.    Generations of Christians facing trial and trouble have found solace in that thought and hope.    The apostle Paul even thought that Christ would come again during his lifetime.    But we do not know when though through the years some folks have claimed they had a special knowledge about that.

There are some things in life we do know when.   When a baby is born through natural means,  we do not when that time will be.   On this winter February day,  we know not  when it will be a snow day or a sunny day.    We do not know.  So, we live like soldiers waiting for their orders to come down.    We work for the Master, and we stand ready for the hour when Christ will come again or call us home to heaven.   Come, Lord Jesus!   Have a good day.-   Pastor Randy Wall

PRAYER --  O God,  who has come and is coming:   we wait with expectation for the day you shall return and take us home.   Help us live each day with hope in you and in eagerness to serve you;  through Christ our Lord.    Amen.