If there's one thing we all universally know it's that we hate waiting. If this wobsite took a while to load, then there's a good chance that you got anxious and jittery, because you had no desire to wait. We hate waiting in line, hate waiting for the internet, and we especially hate waiting in traffic. One of the worst things about travelling is the standing about and waiting in line for things to progress through the torturously slow lines, waiting to be searched, waiting to get on the plane, waiting to get off the plane, wait wait wait. It gets compounded, of course, when you have smaller people with you, who have zero perspective on what a little while is.
For me, a little while can be as long as a few years. I think about my time spent in the city of champions, and I would refer to that as a little while. I would feel as though I lived there for a little while, though it was three years in a row. Now, for my younger son, a little while isn' three years. That's almost his entire lifespan. It doesn't count as a little while when it's that long. I bring this up because in the scriptures, Jesus talks about his death and his resurrection, and tells his disciples that in a little while they will no longer see him, and then in a little while they would see him again. And that sounds like a good thing, to be sure, that there would only be a little while until they saw him again, but the disciples didn't have the benefit of eternity. They didn't have the same persepctive of time that Jesus did.
So what happens when Jesus dies? Well, reality matters. Reality matters, and as the shepherd is struck, the sheep scatter. They scatter and they run, dashing away to safety, to hiding, back to obscurity. Now that Jesus is gone, keep your head down, and don't rock the boat. And speaking of boats, go back to them. Get back to fishing, get back to your life, make catches, haul those fish on board, and don't cause any metaphorical ripples in the water. Jesus spoke a number of times about how he had to die, and about how he was going to rise again, and the disciples, well, they heard his words, but then the real world got in the way, and they sort of forgot to keep hold of that word. In other words, they heard what Christ had said, and they considered their own lives that they could see around them, and promptly decided that the one was more pressing than the other.
This is how we operate, you understand. This is how the good people of the world operate, how they get things done. For we, people of the book, people of the cross, people of the Gospel, we've heard the words of Jesus for decades by now, surely. But even though we've heard the words of Jesus, we have it in our minds that those words ultimately don't count for anything too important. They aren't all that binding to us when faced with the reality of the world around us. Oh, sure, Jesus tells us to turn the other cheek, but what if the guy is being really mean to us? Jesus tells us to love our enemies, but what if they're intolerable, and insist on putting us down at every opportunity. Jesus tells us to give to any who would ask of us, but surely he doesn't want us to become suckers, right?
This is where the disciples were, too, you know. They were told by Jesus that he would die, and would rise again, and the disciples were happy to believe him when he said that, until such a time as they saw it happen. Then, their faith in his words was tested, and fell apart. Just like us. Reality matters, and like the disciples, for us it matters more than the faith we've been given. When you read this, please don't shrink, or hide from this, and insist that you don't do this, because if you didn't then there would be no sin in you. And if you say you have you sin, you decieve yourself, not God. The great thing about the disciples scattering, about them not believing that the resurrection would happen, about them not understanding what Jesus meant when he said 'a little while,' is that the discples, the closest inner circle of followers of Jesus, the OGs, they fell apart like we do. This is a matter of prime importance, of realizing that we have the same problem that the disciples did, in staring down what we see around us, and holding fast to the promise and law of God in the midst of it.
The reading that we had from Revelation stands at the heart of all of this. The reading from Revelation is the end of everything, the time in which all the sadness and hurt is gone, when every tear has been wiped from every eye. when the people of God have been raised from the dead, there is a new heaven and a new earth, when everything is exactly as it should be, that's what we are presented with at the end of Revelation, and staring at that causes us to ask when it is going to happen. And the answer is, according to God, in a little while.
When is that? Nobody knows. How can God say that it's a little while? Because it is, for him. For us, it is forever. The people of God have lived and died for centuries waiting for Jesus to return, and he still as of yet has not. We are still waiting for him to arrive and to put everything right as he has so promised to do. And this little while, with us living in the last days, could last a long time. How could God consider this to be a little while? Well, we think about the end of the book of Job, where God talks to Job, who rightly has questions about why his life has been in the toilet lately, and says this to him.
The Lord answered Job out of the whirlwind and said, 'who is this
that darkeneth counsel by words without knowledge?
Gird up thy loins like a man, for I will demand of thee, and answer thou me.
Where wast thou when I laid the foundation of the earth?
Declare if thou hast understanding. Who hath laid the measures therof, if thou knowest?
Or who hath stretched the line upon it? Whereupon are the foundations thereof fastened, or who laid the corner stone thereof?
God goes on like this for a while (several chapters, actually), with the understanding that though Job is seeking answers, he can't quite get to the perspective that God would require for discussion. In other words, if you don't have God's perspective on eternity, then you're probably not going to understand what he means when he says 'a little while.' Just like my children can't understand that for me, a little while can be ten minutes, or several years.
Ultimately, the question comes down, as it typically does, to trust. That God has made promises, and we are people who are living in those promises. We are people who are living in trust and hope that Jesus will do what he promised to do, that he will put right the things he promised to put right, and see through what has to be seen through. He will do what is required, when the time is right. When will that be? In a little while. We base our trust on his words that he said
Let not your hearts be troubled, believe in God, believe also in me.
In my father's house are many mansions. If it were not so, I would have told you.
In other words, he's been trustworthy and true so far, he's told us the truth about life, about faith, about good and evil, right and wrong, if he's been trustworthy and true this whole time, perhaps we can take him seriously when he talks about eternity and everlasting life, and the purpose behind his work. Yes, the world will get in the way for us, as it did for the disciples too. But when Jesus talks, he says to us to fear not, for he, he himself, has overcome the world.
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