Anticipation

It won’t please everyone, but I’m certainly looking forward to it. And it starts again this evening. It’s been a while. There would have been a time when we would have said things like: ”Can’t survive without it!” But, oddly, we have. It will, in my opinion, be to get it back, even if it’s not quite what we’re used to. The Premier League resumes at 6pm this evening! Some people will have been waiting with great anticipation. Others won’t even notice it’s happening. For those who’ve been waiting, there is great excitement. Liverpool are set poised to win their first title in 30 years. How soon will they clinch it? Who will get into next season’s Champions League? Who; will get relegated? During the lockdown and the restrictions, we’ve found other ways to keep football alive. I’ve quite enjoyed Match of the Day with it’s various Top Ten selections. It’s been an opportunity to look back on things easily forgotten. There have been re-runs of England’s finest moments (although to be fair that didn’t take long). But, while great to watch again and to remember moments that were great at the time, it’s not the real thing. But tonight is the real thing. And the anticipation is rising. I read in a book once that we don’t often talk about heaven because we don’t think it will be much different to what we know now. Sounds odd doesn’t it. Especially of you’re a Christian. Heaven is supposed to be the thing. The thing isn’t it? Some people even thing that being a Christian is all about getting into heaven when you die. That’s kind of how it was presented to me when I was young. At the end of an evangelistic talk (remember them?) the speaker would ask where you would go if you left the meeting and got hit by a bus: heaven or…But Jesus doesn’t seem to think like that. The Bible doesn’t talk much about heaven. Sometimes it talks about an afterlife, but not often. Jesus does say that he come and take us to where he is. And Revelation does talk about a new heaven and a new earth. But we don’t talk much about it. I’ve certainly never preached about it. And yet…And yet…what we experience now is not the real thing. No really it isn’t. Sorry if that disappoints you. What we think of as real, material possessions, success, money and the like are only temporal. That just means they won’t last. They will fade away. What is eternal is what it ultimately important and that’s the stuff we can’t see or touch. Love. Relationship. Faith. Peace. Joy. The truth is, that one day, there will be a new heaven and a new earth. But the eternal is present now. It’s already begun. There is an anticipation about what is to come. Absolutely there is. But that’s not everything. God is present here and now. And that’s what makes the difference. I’ll enjoy watching the Premier League tonight and in the days to come. But I wait in eager anticipation for what is eternal, now and in the future.