Ooooh. That sounds ominous!
I e-wrote this to a friend today:
One thing really encouraged me from a Tim Keller sermon on Hebrews recently [(our small group is studying Hebrews and listening to the sermons, too)]. I long so much for [my husband] to get “fixed,” for life to improve (sometimes these days I ONLY want pain relief and could care less about sanctification and knowing Jesus), for me to mellow, and I despair that life will never change.
But Tim reminded me that one day, in eternity, all of our longings WILL be fulfilled: every wrong will be righted and every effect of sin, overturned.
[He also pointed out that saints of old were able to endure horrific torture and death because they knew one day that their bodies would be returned to them restored.]
So this longing for relief is real and legitimate and will one day be fulfilled, as Romans 8 reminds us.
Hallelujiah.
Oops, but maybe not in this life.
Oh, well.
That really does encourage me, that when the “end” comes, when the old earth is replaced by the new heavens and the new earth, my aching longings will cease. One day I will be perfect! My husband will be all I ever wanted (although then I will have Jesus and that will be all I ever wanted)! One day, I’ll LOVE my job. Hallelujiah!
Come, Lord Jesus.
Amen
P.S. In the meantime, our family is taking a REAL Holiday at Sea (on a ship!). Will post again when we return!
Have a lovely real holiday at sea.
Great post.
In the early Patristic writings, they called the Lords Supper, pharmakon athanasia — the medicine of immortality — thinking, explicitly, about the resurrection of their bodies on the last day. As they partook of Christ’s body and blood, as part of his Body on earth, they reflected on their union with him, not only in his sufferings, but also in his resurrection.
Perhaps celebrating the Eucharist every Sunday was one of the ways they inwardly digested the Gospel of the Kingdom to the salutary effect of being courageous martyrs who knew, indeed, that only believers in Jesus, were really and ultimately death-proof.
Look at the language of the 1928 Book of Common Prayer when the minister serves the bread:
The Body of our Lord Jesus Christ, which was given for thee,
preserve thy *body* and soul unto everlasting life. Take and eat this in remembrance that Christ died for thee, and feed on him in thy heart by faith, with thanksgiving.
And the prayer of the congregation after taking communion:
Almighty and ever-living God, we most heartily thank thee
for that thou dost feed us, in these holy mysteries, with the
spiritual food of the most precious Body and Blood of thy
Son our Savior Jesus Christ; and dost assure us thereby of
thy favor and goodness towards us; and that we are very
*members incorporate* in the mystical body of thy Son, the
blessed company of all faithful people; and are also *heirs*,
through hope, of thy *everlasting kingdom*. And we humbly
beseech thee, O heavenly Father, so to assist us with thy
grace, that we may continue in that holy fellowship, and do
all such good works as thou hast prepared for us to walk in;
through Jesus Christ our Lord, to whom, with thee and the
Holy Ghost, be all honor and glory.
Powerful stuff….deathproof indeed.
—Theoden
I loveto go to the seashore or the Rocky mountains myself
http://anyonecare.wordpress.com/2008/10/17/great-food-for-thought/