This morning’s sermon was on the hope that we as Christians should have as await Jesus’ return, and how that hope should transform the way we live in the present day. Our pastor used a phrase that I found apt: “We are a shadow of our future selves.” What a wonderful thought, I thought, that there is so much more to come.
We usually conclude our morning service with a hymn right after the sermon, and usually the hymn is related to the sermon topic. As the organ fired up for this morning’s closing hymn, I looked in the bulletin and saw that the hymn was “My Hope is Built on Nothing Less.” My heart leapt. Here is a hymn that I can rarely get through without shedding a tear or two, how wonderful does it describe the hope that we as Christians have in Jesus Christ.
The hymn took on special significance last December, when my good friend Glenn passed away suddenly at the age of 29. It was a favorite hymn of his, too, and I can still remember all the times we sang the hymn together or referenced it in our conversations, usually when one or both of us were going through some tribulation that required a reminder of the hope we can hold fast to in hard times.
We sung the hymn at Glenn’s funeral, on a dreary winter morning. I can still remember the organist firing up the first chords and me absolutely losing it, thinking of all the significance of this song to Glenn’s life and to my friendship with him. I can still remember his mother, who is an accomplished soloist, soulfully belting out the song at the top of her lungs, to the point that even though there were about 400 people in the sanctuary at the time, her voice distinctly rang out. If it is possible to start crying harder in the midst of crying as hard as I thought I could, I was doing it at that moment.
And so as the organist played and the congregation sang, I thought about my friend Glenn, and in light of this morning’s sermon, how during the time I knew him, he was indeed a shadow of his future self. For as much as Glenn loved life and was full of life, that was just a faint representation of his present and future place of glory. My friend Ian told me the morning after Glenn’s passing that he (Ian) awoke, even in deep sadness, with a smile on his face because he had an image of Glenn dancing in his rumbling, ska-like way in heaven right now. I recalled that image this morning, and wept at the thought of my friend in glory, far happier and far fuller than even his happy and full life here on earth.
Our pastor exhorted us in his sermon with the dazzling possibility that there is so much more in store for us, in terms of fullness of life and experience of glory, of our lives bringing even greater glory in the future than we can possibly image in the present, and how that great hope can drive us to great works. And so as we sang that closing hymn and I thought of my friend, I could not help but be moved: saddened that I am without my friend and that his life was so short, but comforted that for all the ways he experienced and glorified God in his life, he is experiencing and glorifying so much more now.
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