The young groom fidgets nervously in the anteroom, supported by his best man. Butterflies practice aerobatics in his stomach and a trip hammer works overtime in his ears. He thinks he can hardly stand another minute of this heart palpitation, this perspiration running in rivulets down his back, when the door opens: “It’s time,” says the smiling attendant.
We anticipate with joy the marriage of our son on September 30, Lord willing. As John and Janice prepare for their nuptials, vivid memories of our own marriage rise up from their secret place of storage, wrapped carefully in the intervening years, as fresh as the day they were laid away. We are as delighted in the Lord’s plan for them as we were for our own–it’s flood tide in our lives.
The family gather around the hospital bed. The stifling heat goes unnoticed. The room decor means nothing. The emaciated figure on the bed has been the object of more love and prayers in the last nine months than most people receive in a lifetime. Several times the doctor has warned that the young mother has only hours left. On more than one occasion her husband has been summoned from work for the final moments. But hours creep into days, then weeks, until the Father speaks the word: “It’s time.” With a final shuddering of the weary body, her spirit finds release.
On Friday, August 18, my brother Bill’s wife, Rona, beat us Home. We wish we had all gone together, but it was not to be. For those who prayed that she would get better, their prayers were answered in a remarkable way: she didn’t get better; she got best. And yet, though we rejoice for her, we cannot help but feel the ebbing of the tide–indeed, the neap tide at its ebb. For some of us, the waters have seldom run so low.
I was preaching somewhere years ago and quoted (or rather, misquoted) a passage from the book of James. I gave it like this: “Go to now, ye that say, Today or tomorrow we will go into such a city, and continue there a year, and buy and sell, and get gain: whereas ye know not what shall be on the morrow. For what is your life? It is even a vapor, that appeareth for a little time, and then vanisheth away. For that ye ought to say, If the Lord will (this I emphasized), we shall do this, or that” (Jas. 4:13-15, JBN revised version).
After the meeting, an older brother gently rebuked me for leaving out the most important phrase in the verse! “It says, ‘If the Lord will, we shall live, and do this, or that,’ he stated emphatically.
He was right, of course, but why make an issue out of a few words? Didn’t my version give the main idea? I thought to myself.
Then he explained. “You see, I have cancer. Every day I live, it’s only because He wants me to live. ‘If the Lord will, we shall live…’ he quoted again so I wouldn’t miss it. How could I? I had seen the sparkle in his eye, heard the certainty in his voice. He knew that if the Lord willed him to live another day, all hell couldn’t change it. And if it was time to go, high-tech medicine, macrobiotics, vitamin E, faith healers, and all the apricot pits in Mexico couldn’t keep him here. What a relief it is to know that our times are in His hands!
One of these days, the Place will be ready, festooned for the Social Event of the Ages. The Bride will have finished her white linen gown, one stitch at a time. The Special Music, composed in the darkness on a hill outside Salem’s gate, will be ready to be presented to the Church of the Firstborn choir. The Bridegroom, having borne the billows that could not quench His love, now is about to crest the swelling tide of glory that will cover the earth “as the waters cover the sea” (Hab. 2:14).
The Father of the Groom will speak the word: “It’s time.” The Son will not need prompting. Time to plow up those hallowed furrows of “them which sleep in Jesus.” Time to bring His long-awaited Bride home. Time to wipe those tears away. Time to unite families and friends severed for a while. Time to see Him, be like Him, with Him forever.
Oh, Lord, how long?