Good morning…
After yesterday’s post, Life Is A Marathon, I received a brief email from Gina Palermo, the artist who snapped this stunning photo beginning and ending our morning message. “That pix reminds me of the scripture that says that the Lord will come in the clouds… Rev 1:7 – Behold, he is coming with the clouds, and every eye will see him, even those who pierced him, and all tribes of the earth will wail on account of him. Even so. Amen.”
I love this photo and I also love this sacred scripture verse. Both sum up for me the overwhelming celebration awaiting us at the finish line of life’s agonizing marathon. Looking up the enduring promises surrounding this scripture verse, in The Passion Translation we read:
Now to the one who constantly loves us and has loosed us from our sins by his own blood, and to the one who has appointed us as a kingdom of priests to serve his God and Father—to him be glory and dominion throughout the eternity of eternities! Amen!
Behold! He appears within the clouds, and every eye will see him, even those who pierced him. And all the people of the earth will weep with sorrow because of him. And so it is to be! Amen.
“I am the Aleph and the Tav, the beginning and the ending,” says the Lord God, “who is, who was, and who is to come, the Almighty” (Revelation 1:5b-7).
We are each running the race personally set before our fragile feet as we journey toward the same finish line at our own pace, in God’s own time. As Jesus himself promised in John 12:32 (NIV): “And I, when I am lifted up from the earth, will draw all people to myself.” At the end of every marathon there is a lot of weeping. Tears of pain, tears of joy, tears of relief, tears of gratitude – all of these salty tears flow mingled down.
Might all who have experienced the crossing over of an earthly finish line recognize it as a sweet foretaste of our forever feast to come?
In this moment, I think back on one of the songs played at Saturday’s service celebrating the completed earthly life of Dr. Leon Haley, Jr. Let’s enjoy the music video now, as together we imagine being reunited with loved ones and the living Christ who is, who was, and who is to come, the Almighty.
…Sue…
