A Thought For The Week Of February 16

"Dear friends, now we are children of God, and what we will be has not yet been made known. But we know that when Christ appears, we shall be like him, for we shall see him as he is." (1 John 3:2) One of the great things about Christian faith is that it holds together the hope that God gives us with the mystery that still remains to us. This verse is evidence of that. Perhaps we have a tendency to think that hope and mystery are mutually exclusive: that if there's any mystery remaining then our hope is gone, and that if we truly have hope then it must be because no mystery remains. But that's not true. For a Christian, hope and mystery co-exist. In this verse, the hope is very clear. One day we're going to be like Christ. After all, that's the goal of a Christian life, and let's face it - it often seems to be a very distant goal. Because, really, we're not like Christ. I know that I'm not. But then hope leaps out at me from this verse - I may not be like Christ today, but one day I will be. The verse doesn't tell me exactly how I'll be like Christ. Behaviour? Substance? That's another mystery. How will I be like Christ? Well, "what we will be has not yet been made known. But ... we shall be like him." Sometimes a mystery does seem to dampen hope, but not in this case. This is exciting; we anticipate it - because whatever it is that we'll be, we'll be like Christ! Hope and mystery held together in perfect balance.