The King's Invitation

Christmas will mark five years since my father passed away.  I know it’s cliché, but it really does seem like only yesterday.

I sat at my desk looking through some old family photographs, with my young son on my knee.  There was one picture in particular I paused over.  My dad.  He was wearing a camouflaged cap.  The same cap I kept on top of my desk, high enough to discourage little hands from bothering it.  But my son knew whose hat it was.  He noticed me looking at it and said, “That’s paw paw’s hat.”  I took it down and put it on my head.  Funny, somehow that always makes me feel close to him.  My son grinned, took the hat, and placed it on his own little 3-year-old head.  It slumped down over his eyes and we both laughed.

He never got to meet his grandfather.  I wish he had, they’d have been best friends.  I’ve been telling him things about my dad… things he’d done, stories he’d told.  I think I owe my dad that much for all the things he did for me.  All my son will ever know about my dad is what I tell him, so I feel it important to let him know how awesome my dad was.  All the things he could do (he could fix anything).  All the great times we had together.  I’m sure there were bad times, too, I just don’t remember any of those.  As long as I live, he won’t be forgotten.

It is beyond description, the loss a child feels when losing a father, at whatever age.  It is a feeling of being disconnected, of being vulnerable, like seed blown by the wind...  I guess it would all be very depressing and sad, except for one thing:  I have HOPE.  Hope that I will see my dad again one day.  Don’t get me wrong, I miss my dad more and more as the years go by.  I long to hear his voice again, to see him grin beneath that old hat.  But I don’t mourn for him, because I know our separation is only temporary.  I do mourn for the lost souls out there, though.  Their losses are full of pain and sorrow, because they don’t have that eternal hope.

We use that word “hope” today to mean something we wish for.  The word usually translated as “hope” in the scriptures, actually means “confident expectation”.  It is something you are CONFIDENT will come to pass.  Peter said, “Blessed be the God and Father of our Lord Jesus Christ, who according to His abundant mercy has begotten us again to a living hope through the resurrection of Jesus Christ from the dead, to an inheritance incorruptible and undefiled and that does not fade away, reserved in heaven for you, who are kept by the power of God through faith for salvation ready to be revealed in the last time… though now you do not see Him, yet believing, you rejoice with joy inexpressible and full of glory, receiving the end of your faith – the salvation of your souls.” (1 Peter 1:3-9).

Just as my son will never know my father unless I tell him about him, those lost people will never know our heavenly FATHER unless we tell them about HIM.  We must tell them about the things He has done, and the things He has said.  We must tell them how He can fix ANYTHING, and has fixed EVERYTHING on the cross of Calvary.  And that they, too, can have that eternal hope which is offered freely through the sacrifice of Jesus Christ.  We can’t make them accept Him, but we can see to it that they never forget who He is!  Don’t you think we owe our Father that much?

Take the church to someone this week – you’ll both benefit. 

© 2008 Randall Buchanan

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