It Won’t Always Look Like This

One of the coolest things I’ve experienced in the past few years has been watching little kids play together on their own. I love just sitting on the outskirts of their little world and listening to the games, stories and scenarios they invent. I love how differently the drama plays out depending on the gender that has the most kids or the oldest kids… in other words, when there are more girls, it comes across like the dramatization of a Jane Austen novel, while boys in charge tend to convince everyone involved to help them explore the expanded universe of Star Wars. Kids pretend to be animals, parents, favorite cartoon characters and spouses. Lately Anna has been pretending to be a unicorn, but not just any unicorn… this mythical creature is actually a domesticated house pet complete with an owner named Norah (who is supposedly telling the unicorn what to do, although it usually sounds like the other way around).

Some of our kids’ best friends are Tatum and Arlo Craven. Tatum is three and awesome, and although she cuts up with the kids like crazy, she’s never actually spoken to me… Arlo is one and he’s just the bomb. The problem is that the rest of the kids are so much bigger, faster and stronger than Arlo that he winds up being sort of the punching bag of the group. Not only does he constantly have to play the kinds of girly games that his 11-year-old self would punch his lights out for playing, but he sort of gets pushed around. Sometimes the girls are just treating him like a doll or whatever, but sometimes Norah has pushed him. Every time this has happened we have disciplined Norah, but the last time, after she apologized to Arlo, I was putting her coat on to leave their house when I told Norah, “You know, you’re not always going to be able to push Arlo around.” Arlo’s dad Lucas started to laugh because he had given Tatum this same speech not long before, about how little baby boys grow up to be really strong guys who don’t like to be pushed or put in headlocks…

Yesterday I was reading Mark 14 where Jesus was on trial before the Sanhedrin in the middle of the night. They had been trying to get rid of Him in earnest for two and a half years and they finally thought they had the evidence they needed. They apprehended Him and brought Him before the high priest Annas. The trial was a mess. Matthew says many false witnesses came forward and their testimony was so all over the place that a verdict couldn’t be reached. After Annas questioned Him, the guards smacked Him and then took Him to Ciaphas the high priest who finally got frustrated and just asked Jesus point-blank: “Are you the Christ, the Son of the Blessed One?” “I Am,” said Jesus, “And you will see the son of Man sitting at the right hand of the Mighty One and coming on the clouds of heaven.”

This is an amazing moment. Ciaphas was staring at a man he thought was simply a poor, blue-collar, redneck… homeless, in ratty clothes with a face that would soon be unrecognizably broken by the fists of his men. And Jesus knew that by calling Himself God, He had sealed His fate… they would execute Him for blasphemy, and they wouldn’t even need any more witnesses, but before anything else happened, He basically told the high priest, “Do what you’re going to do, but know this: I am the Christ, and I won’t always look like this… You’re going to see this face again, but different.” Jesus told Him that next time He would be seated beside God, coming on the wings of the sky. Paul tells us in 2 Thessalonians 1 that Jesus will appear “…in blazing fire with His powerful angels.” He’s coming back! And when He does, He won’t be poor and broken. It will rock this whole world. I’ll be surprised if our retinas survive the experience! No one will have to ask, “Are you the Christ?” because every heart will be shattered by the blinding glory of the Creator of life and love. That day really is coming… and it's not going to be like anything we thought! The King is coming... get pumped!