“…as you anticipate and hasten the coming of the day of God…” 2 Peter 3:12
Introduction: The blessed old saint’s life at last came to an end, peacefully, in his bed, as he breathed his last, with his loving and sorrowing wife and family gathered around him,. As his soul sped heavenward, he heard ever more loudly the celestial music of joyful wonder and worship, the beauty of which exceeded his wildest dreams in the life now ended. A moment later, if heaven counts time the way we do, the newly-arrived believer found himself standing before the most dazzling jewel-bedecked gates of The Celestial City, to be greeted by a radiant, smiling angel, who looked like the gospel singer, Della Reese. Seeing how surprised the newly arrived saint looked, the angel asked him…
Angel: What’s the matter? You didn’t expect angels to be black?
Saint: Uh, no, that’s not what I’m surprised about.
Angel: Or female?
Saint: Uh, no, not that, either. There’ve been more than a few black and female friends in my life whom I would call ‘angels,’ their kindness and encouragement had that much to do with my being here.
Angel: Maybe they were angels.
Saint: I bet that Gracie Havers, my fellow teacher, was.
Angel: No, but I know that she’s eager to see you.
Saint: And I’m eager to see her. Or what about the woman who gave me a lift to the next exit west of Hays, Kansas, when our van broke down, and it was snowing so hard?
Angel: No, but you’re getting close.
Saint: You mean the woman who stopped and gave my wife and children food and blankets, and waited with them while they stayed with the van?
Angel: That’s me!
Saint: Oh, bless you!”
(The saint opens wide his arms to hug the angel, who returns the gesture. Then they give each other a high-five.)
Angel: How much more blessed can I get? I’m an angel in God’s heaven!
Saint: Wait a minute! I know another reason why I’m so surprised. You played an angel on TV, didn’t you? The old show our family used to watch on Saturday nights, “Touched by an Angel?”
Angel: That’s right! And you probably thought we weren’t real angels, didn’t you!
Saint: I thought that was the point!
Angel: How else do you think we could have gotten such a wholesome, intelligent and uplifting show on major network TV, if heaven didn’t pull a few strings and plant a few agents?
Saint: I wondered about that myself, sometimes. But I’m still surprised about something.
Angel: What’s that?
Saint: That I came here this way, and this late in the game, at the end of a long life. The way things were going down there, I expected to get raptured out of the world’s worsening mess long ago, even before I got married, had a family, and grandkids. In fact, I was pretty sure that Jesus should have come back physically, visibly, already.
Angel: St. Peter and me, uh, we had a discussion about that very subject just before you came. I need to talk with you about that.
Saint: Oh, am I in trouble, or something? I do get to come in, don’t I?
Angel: Oh, of course you do! If every saint who crossed the Pearly Gates had to be perfect and have everything figured out, this would be a very quiet, lonely place. I don’t know if I could even stay. All the perfection you’ll get here or anywhere else is God alone.
Saint: Well, that puts me at ease. But I’d still like to know why Jesus has not yet returned and fulfilled all that God promised and predicted through the prophets. I did my best, as Peter puts it, “to hasten the day.”
Angel: And just what does ‘hasten the day’ mean to you?
Saint: Well, I studied all the Bible prophecies about the end times, read all the books about it, saw some movies and videos, reviewed a lot of time charts and drew up a few of my own. I pretty much had the time and date of Jesus’ Second Coming all figured out at least four different times.
Angel: And you don’t see a problem with that?
Saint: Why should I?
Angel: Well, how’d that work out for you?
Saint: The last two charts I kept secret. Don’t ask me how it went after I made the first two public.
Angel: I see.
Saint: But didn’t Jesus tell us to be ready for his return?
Angel: Certainly. But did he ever say that it was okay to NOT be ready?
Saint: What do you mean?
Angel: Well, if you mortals were able to figure out ahead of time exactly when Jesus was returning—something that even we angels don’t know—then you’d also know when he was NOT returning.
Saint: Oh. I hadn’t thought of that.
Angel: It’s like this: let’s say that your boss, back when you were working, had told you that he or she was going to be gone for an unknown number of days, but that, before he came back, he wanted you to accomplish tasks A, B and C.
Saint: She did that a few times.
Angel: She. Okay. Now let’s say that you spend most of that time while she is gone trying to figure out where she was and when she was coming back, instead of doing A, B or C, like she asked. What’s your boss supposed to think when she comes back to find that you didn’t get A, B or C accomplished, because you were so busy instead monitoring her travel and her timetable?
Saint: Oh, I get it. The boss would think that I was a lazy, shiftless bum who just wanted to see how much time this mouse had to play, while the cat was away.
Angel: Don’t be so hard on yourself.
Saint: But I suddenly see how all that charting and poring over tiny little details of Bible prophecy, like numbers and letters, to figure out what wasn’t ours to know, looks from your perspective up here.
Angel: So why do you think the Master said, “Watch and be ready” so often, and that “Not even the Son of Man knows the time of his return?”
Saint: Because we were supposed to be ready for his return all the time.
Angel: You got it.
Saint: But what about Peter’s words, telling us to ‘hasten the day of Christ’s return?’
Angel: What about them?
Saint: Well, that made me think that we mortals could have something to do with the timing of the Second Coming. How else might we hasten it, or speed it up, without first figuring out when it was?
Angel: You don’t see the step or two missing in your logic?
Saint: It made sense to me.
Angel: Once again, why should you or any other mortal in your lifetime know more about Christ’s Second Coming than us angels do, or the prophets did, who predicted his first coming? You were supposed to live with the same hope and faith that they had, but not with more inside knowledge and certainty.
Saint: So, that’s where I missed the boat, hunh? Confusing faith and hope with foreknowledge and certainty?
Angel: Right. But good thing you had the hope of Christ’s coming. What would life have been like without it?
Saint: Eeeewch. Hopeless, I guess.
Angel: And it’s still a good thing that you studied your Bible so much. So tell me what Jesus said in Matthew 24: 14.
Saint: Oh, I know that one: “And this gospel of the kingdom will be preached in the whole world as a testimony to all nations, and then the end will come.” (Pause) So?
Angel: Well, there’s your timetable: when a faithful gospel witness has gone everywhere it can go, to every tribe, tongue and nation in the world, in ways that can be understood, accepted or rejected, then Christ is ready to come, and this city to descend. In fact, that’s all the timetable you need.
Saint: Is that testimony supposed to go out to all the nations by word or by deed?
Angel: Yes.
Saint: Okay, both word and deed, I take it.
Angel: Yes, again.
Saint: So, how will we know when that timetable for the Lord’s return is coming close to an end?
Angel: You’re still not getting it.
Saint: Getting what?
Angel: Knowing the timing of Christ’s Second Coming is above our paygrade. The Master said to always be ready.
Saint: But still, we’re supposed to do something to “hasten that day,” aren’t we?
Angel: And you did.
Saint: Really? With those Bible prophecy charts?
Angel: Most definitely not. If anything, that was a distraction, maybe even a delay.
Saint: Oh, sorry about that.
Angel: Like I said, don’t be so hard on yourself.
Saint: So, what did I do to hasten the day?
Angel: Remember Thanksgiving Day of 1989?
Saint: Can’t say that I do. I ate my way through 91 of them. What happened in that one?
Angel: Remember the international students you welcomed to your home, along with your son, when he came home from college?
Saint: Oh, yeah! There were three of them, right?
Angel: Remember Moussa?
Saint: The guy from……Sierra Leonne, was it?
Angel: Senegal.
Saint: What about him?
Angel: He’s looking forward to welcoming you, too, along with the other saints of his tribe and family.
Saint: I didn’t know that he trusted Christ.
Angel: He didn’t before Thanksgiving of 1989. But he did after then, because of how you welcomed and treated him so warmly. That, and your cornbread stuffing. When he went back home, he started a church in his home village, the first of his own tribe.
Saint: So that leaves how many more tribes to go until the Lord’s return?
Angel: I told you,….
Saint:…. “that’s above our paygrade.” Now I get it!
Angel: We hear that a lot around here.
Saint: But what I still want to know is, how are we supposed to “hasten the day” of Christ’s coming?
Angel: Go turn over that gold brick on the city street, the one right in front of you, by the curb. Don’t worry, no one’s gonna arrest you for attempted robbery. We don’t need any police department in this city. Besides, where you gonna fence it? We don’t have any pawn shops here, either. Now read what it says underneath.
Saint: It says, “12th Century AD, Sister Teresa of Dortmund, Germany, attends to those sick and dying of the plague, giving them aid, comfort and company in a church-based hospice, until she too succumbs to the plague and dies at the age of 27.” Only 27? What a sad and tragic waste.
Angel: That’s what you say.
Saint: But that seems so sad.
Angel: True. But it’s not a waste. Heaven will see to it that none of your good and godly efforts are ever wasted. You may not see the results of them in your mortal lifetimes, but nothing of God, from God, or for God, is ever lost or wasted. In fact, every good work and every good word for God’s sake has something to do with the final shape of this Celestial City. When the Architect and the Mayor says it’s ready, then Christ returns, and this city reunites heaven and earth.
Saint: I still don’t get how anything we do in our earthly lives has any effect as grand as what I see here.
Angel: What did I just tell you about your labors of love, and your expressions of faith?
Saint: That nothing of God, from God, or for God, is ever lost nor wasted. So where does it all go?
Angel: I told you. Here, to help build the Celestial City, and make it so beautiful. Up here, we treasure and stockpile all your good and godly words and works, your tears, your prayers….they’re all infinitely precious to us.
Saint: But I thought God founded this city and was building it, like it says in Hebrews 11.
Angel: Of course. But God is not only building this city for you, God is building this city through you. And whenever or however you trust God and cooperate with him, you effectively “hasten” the day when this city is complete and Christ returns, whether you know it, or see it at the time, or not.
Saint: Hmm. (sigh).
Angel: Now what are you so sad about? Didn’t I just tell you some good news?
Saint: I was rather proud of all those end-time Bible prophecy charts I drew up. They made a lot of sense at the time, and gave me something of a thrill of hope, I guess. But they probably didn’t contribute anything to the building of this city, did they?
Angel: Well, if it’s of any comfort, at least you got the ending right.
Saint: So, did I ever send you all anything else useful for the building of this city?
Angel: Glad you asked! Two gold bricks over from the one you just pulled up, to the left—there, right, that one!—pick it up and turn it over.
Saint: October 7, 1982, It appears that I bought lunch for a homeless guy at a taco stand. That’s all? That got me a gold brick up here?
Angel: That and more. By the way, the guy you bought lunch for is also looking forward to seeing you again.
Saint: Really? I don’t remember him, nor that lunch.
Angel: He said he didn’t believe in God until after you shared lunch with him.
Saint: Still, it’s “file not found” in my memory bank, I’m afraid.
Angel: You know, my friend, we hear that one a lot up here, too. Billions of saints tell the Master, when they first meet him, “Honestly, Lord, I can’t remember when it was that I fed you when you were hungry, or clothed you when you were naked, or visited you when you were in prison,” precisely because it just came naturally from who they were; they didn’t give it a second thought before they did it or afterward. But heaven remembers….
Saint:….and uses it to build this city, right?
Angel: Right. And to beautify it, too.
Saint: Still, to get something as precious up here as this gold brick, you’d think one should die as a martyr, or lead thousands of people to salvation, instead of just buying someone a taco.
Angel: Heaven’s accounting and yours on earth are so not the same. That taco was worth a ton of gold bricks to that poor man because he had never before experienced kindness like what you showed him, in his hard, sorry life. What’s more, he had seen the worst of the worst, when he was a POW in Germany during the war.
Saint: Oh! Now I remember! He told me he couldn’t believe in God because of what he saw during the war. Funny that he should be here now; I had nothing to say in response to his atheism. I don’t think I even tried to say anything.
Angel: But you bought him a taco.
Saint: I had no idea that one taco would make such a difference.
Angel: There was also the attention, the conversation and the listening you gave him. You know, it’s not the great things you mortals do that “hasten the day” of Christ’s coming, but rather, all those little things you do with great love that “hasten the day.”
Saint: Wow, I’m beginning to see things so very differently!
Angel: Like I said, we hear that a lot around here.
Saint: Are there other things I did to hasten the completion of this city, and the coming of Christ?
Angel: Yes. Just above that brick is another gem in the wall. Pull it out and see what it says.
Saint: Okay! It says, “Prayer.” Anything else? Is that all?
Angel: Is that all? You don’t think your prayers counted for anything? Do you think all the billions of you were just wasting your breath whenever you all prayed, “Thy kingdom come?” and “Maranatha, Come, Lord Jesus?”
Saint: I didn’t mean to say that.
Angel: Of course not. But those prayers not only “hastened the day,” they enabled you to do what all you could to “hasten the day.”
Saint: Really?
Angel: Really. Now look under that amethyst over there.
Saint: This one?
Angel: Right. What’s it say underneath?
Saint: “Worship.” Hmmm. I was tempted again to ask, “Is that all?” but I’m starting to catch on. That had something to do with “hastening the day” too, didn’t it?
Angel: Think of every time you worshiped as a dress rehearsal for the joy that is soon to blow your mind with timeless wonder and delight, once you pass these gates and join the throng around the Lamb. It certainly hastened your preparation for the day of Christ’s return.
Saint: So, by how much time, how many days or years, did I hasten the completion of this city and the day of Christ’s return?
Angel: I told you already….
Angel and Saint: ….That’s above our paygrade.
Saint: Now I’m starting to get it!
Angel: Like I said, we hear that a lot around here.
The End