As I met some of the guests, and found some really neat connections with our stories, our pasts, and our passions...just a hint of sadness swept over me. I thought, "Wow, these are great people. Some beautiful older couples who have incredible life experiences and wisdom. Some young people with whom I could see myself being good friends...but in this life, we meet so many people at so many places and there's just no way to stay in touch with everyone, and most definitely there's no way to stay close, in deep, authentic community and relationship with everyone. Yet...these are the kinds of people I want to be close with. There is a deep bond in Christ and they have spiritual treasures to share...I love getting to know people, but I hate goodbyes. I want all things to last, especially relationships." And as soon as these whispering thoughts came, another thought hit me: "This is why I long for home. I long for heaven. I long for that great wedding feast of the Lamb, where all of the guests will be there forever and the party will never end. The feasting will go on, the dancing will continue, the conversations of joy and glory will be forever, and the bride of Christ, the great vast body of believers who span the globe and all of history, will be there together, knowing Christ fully and being fully known by Him. And we will know one another completely and so splendidly as we have been made spotless and perfect by our King."
So my momentary sad thought was transformed into this beautiful ache, taking my heart on a journey of imagining my real home...and the real wedding for which we all await. Another ache sweeps over me still, as I long for all to have this hope- to know this Bridegroom, Jesus Christ, Who alone can satisfy the last longing of the soul and wipe away every tear at the cross. I ache for strangers I pass by in the day and the loved ones I pray for at night to have this assurance of Home, of Heaven, of forever in Him. I don't want to be at the great feast and eternal reunion of friends and sisters and brothers with any missing. I long for each one to receive the love the King has to offer and the eternal gift of life He's purchased at the cross. I think of Matthew 22:1-14... "The kingdom of heaven is like a king who prepared a wedding banquet for his son. He sent his servants to those who had been invited to the banquet to tell them to come, but they refused to come." Please, dear friends, do not refuse this invitation. Welcome Christ into your heart and life, so that when this short life is over, He will welcome you into His Kingdom, into the forever feasting of the saints in all glory, at the most spectacular wedding celebration in eternity's history.
Consider what C.S. Lewis reflects in Mere Christianity, on our true country, on the deepest longing of our lives:
“The Christian says, 'Creatures are not born with
desires unless satisfaction for those desires exists. A baby feels hunger:
well, there is such a thing as food. A duckling wants to swim: well, there is
such a thing as water. Men feel sexual desire: well, there is such a thing as
sex. If I find in myself a desire which no experience in this world can
satisfy, the most probable explanation is that I was made for another world. If
none of my earthly pleasures satisfy it, that does not prove that the universe
is a fraud. Probably earthly pleasures were never meant to satisfy it, but only
to arouse it, to suggest the real thing. If that is so, I must take care, on
the one hand, never to despise, or to be unthankful for, these earthly
blessings, and on the other, never to mistake them for the something else of
which they are only a kind of copy, or echo, or mirage. I must keep alive in
myself the desire for my true country, which I shall not find till after death;
I must never let it get snowed under or turned aside; I must make it the main
object of life to press on to that country and to help others to do the same.”
