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"
Pray for me that I not loosen my grip on the hands
of Jesus even under the guise of ministry to the
poor." (Mother Teresa)
Never Alone
A
decade ago, I visited India. The sights, sounds,
and smells left a deep impression. But the real
surprise? Everywhere, at every hour of the day and
night, I saw people. Laborers slowly placed pavers
on a city street at 2am. Men and women walked in
the rural fields at every hour of the day. The
roads seemed constantly noisy and busy, especially
with Leyland trucks belching out clouds of black
exhaust.
Never
alone, you could feel claustophobic in open
spaces.
My
experience in India draws attention to a greater
spiritual
reality.
Everywhere we go, we continue to be surrounded by
people. Sometimes they have flesh and blood like
us; most times not. Our entire lives are immersed
in the company of the
Called.
Those
in Christ who have died before us have not
abandoned us through death. Instead, they have
joined the cloud of witnesses who continue to
observe us (see Hebrews
12.1).
It
seems that the gathering of past saints into
eternal bliss does not separate them from us. On
the contrary, those saints and family across the
bar are the cheer-squad urging us to run with
endurance the race that is set before
us.
The
Presence of Christ is awesome, but this crowd of
onlookers is also wondrous. The ancient (and
modern) gnostic notion that eternal reward means
escape from the physical and precludes any
connection to the material world is simply false.
The dichotomy of physical and spiritual does not
stand up in light of
Scripture.
Need
we pray to these people? Or seek to re-connect
with them? No. The writer to Hebrews urges us to
"fix our eyes on Jesus." The Father, Son, and Holy
Spirit are our track companions. But we do not run
the race unnoticed by earlier contestants. Indeed,
we honor them by learning from their journeys and
remaining faithful to our
calling.
This
invisible crowd envelops us. We live in community
and find constant company even when we sit
seemingly
alone.
Those
who have passed from this life to the next remain
surprisingly near to us. They sit in the stands,
with bated breath, watching and perhaps cheering.
They anticipate that glorious day when the races
all finish and the celebrations begin for all
God's people,
together.
In
HOPE
-
David | 
