My Dear Shepherds,
My custom on Sunday mornings used to be to sit on the platform watching as God’s people found their seats. I knew most of them—names, kids, jobs, personalities, struggles, some of their sins, their spiritual lives and gifts. I often had this mysterious sense that there was more there than met the eye. I don’t mean their secrets. I mean God’s secret—what they really were and what would become of them. They were disguised in mortality though they rarely realized it.
Remember how C. S. Lewis said that the ordinary people we take for granted are those who will become either “immortal horrors or everlasting splendors”? It was those “everlasting splendors” that I’d think about as they stood to sing on a Sunday morning.
Dear friends, now we are children of God, and what we will be has not yet been made known. But we know that when Christ appears, we shall be like him, for we shall see him as he is. (1 John 3:2)
We shall all be like Christ, thoroughly sanctified and dressed in new bodies, but we will not all be the same. It will matter then how believers stored up treasures now. There will be rewards there for faith and faithfulness here.
I’ve pictured this like the awards assembly in my high school at the end of each school year. The whole school would be there as our classmates were recognized and rewarded for their achievements in academics, music, sports, and the like. We weren’t all the same and those who were just glad to graduate weren’t shamed or dishonored; in fact, we often cheered for each other. That’s my best shot at imagining receiving our rewards in heaven.
We all look forward to meeting Jesus, to reunions with loved ones, and the Q&A with the Bible’s authors. But as pastors, I certainly hope that we will also be able to see what becomes of those whom we’ve shepherded here.
For example, perhaps we have pastored saints whose devotion to Christ was largely unseen, whose prayers might have been the only service they could offer, but whose intercession changed lives and circumstances. Imagine their surprise at the Lord’s recognition.
Some there, I suspect, will realize just how close they came to forfeiting this life. But no citizens of that land will grovel in guilt. They will sing full-throated praises and marvel at their white robes.
Think of those who couldn’t get enough of God’s truth, who loved your sermons and who studied Scripture deeply. Picture them then, pushing into the celestial wonders of God like treasure hunters, their hearts burning within them as they exclaim, “You’ll never guess what I just learned about Jesus!”
Perhaps we’ll be able to watch as those whom we stood beside at funerals are reunited with loved ones who have indeed become everlasting splendors. Imagine them stepping back to say, “Look at you! Just look at you!”
Some (I hope many) will be prodigals and wanderers whom we prayed for and sought. Think of the joy of seeing them there! Perhaps we’ll remember how we feared for them and how long we waited, maybe even to the day we died. How we will embrace them!
On a recent summer evening, we heard a symphony orchestra begin with Aaron Copeland’s “Fanfare for the Common Man,” magnificent with soaring brass and thundering percussion, grandly announcing that even common people warrant a fine fanfare. For believers there is a far better salute, like when Mr. Valiant-for-Truth (and so many saints we’ve pastored) “crossed over, and all the trumpets sounded for him on the other side.”
Be ye glad!
