Friday 5 September 2008

A definition of the Christian life

I've been struck by the way that 1 Thess 1:10 gives a (for us unusual description) of the Christian life "to wait for his Son from heaven..." The Christian life is described here in terms of waiting for the return of Jesus Christ. I wonder how many of us really think of discipleship in those terms? We are busy with so many projects, plans, ideas and our own 'perfecting' that we forget to 'wait for his Son'. Perhaps that reveals our lack of hope. It seems almost passive and joyless to simply wait for Jesus, doesn't it? It would be easy to parody such waiting as typical Christian anti-worldliness. Yet, perhaps it is our problem that many good things take the place of the one supremely Good Thing - the personal presence of Jesus. Perhaps, our hope has become diluted by things that are temporal. What are we really looking forward to? What does it really mean to live the Christian life: it means to wait for Jesus to come back.