The King is calling. You have been summoned to appear in his courts. All of the saints will be there, though millions of them will not be visible to us. We will lift our voices, and heaven will thunder. Our voices may be small, but the Father hears each one. Prayer will ascend from the Church’s altar, rising like incense before the heavenly throne. The Lord will speak, pardoning our sins, assuring us of his love and acceptance, proclaiming and instructing us in his truth. His Table has been set with bread and wine, the emblems of his body and blood, visible words making the invisible Word tastable. We will feast in the midst of our foes, fearless because we know that those who are with us are more than those who are against us. Then God will bless us, laying his hands upon us, sending us forth to fill the world with the knowledge and glory of his power, love, and authority. We will lift our hands in praise and go on our way singing with hearts full of joy.
The Lord’s Day may seem very ordinary, but what is ordinary on the holy day is really quite extraordinary. It might be easy to take the routine for granted, but we must learn to see it with spiritual eyes. Put on the spectacles of the Scriptures—to borrow an analogy from Calvin—let the Spirit correct your vision. You are in the midst of angels. You are singing with Abel and Noah, Abraham and Moses, David and Elijah, Hannah and Mary and Rufus’s mom. We are communing with heavenly realities, more substantial than the insubstantial objects that we presently can see. That is not merely an ancient book being read; the Lord is speaking. The pastor may be saying the same things again, but he is only a dummy sitting in the Savior’s lap. The Shepherd is the ventriloquist. The sacraments may not operate magically, but everything else about the Lord’s Day is. This is the true power, the real conspiracy, the secret society that the storybooks can only imagine and caricature. We are not alone, and there is a plan for a foreign power to take over the world. He is not a usurper but the Redeemer, and he is coming to reclaim what is rightly his own.
Every Lord’s Day we go to heaven to be with the Lord. Most of the time we then return in order to carry on the work and battle here below. One day we will ascend and remain with the Lord, carried by angels to join Abraham and the saints who have fallen asleep before. We will await the final coming, the day of the Lord’s glory and earth’s redemption. Every Lord’s Day is a preparation and participation in that future, final hope. The King is summoning us. Come, and let us adore him. --JME
