From Peter the Disciple.
To the Exiles.
I have seen him. I have walked behind his dusty feet over mile after mile of parched road. I have eaten with him, laughed with him. I drank wine with him (oh what wine!).
I can never forget the look in his eyes. I would be right in the middle of arguing with James over the right way to patch a net, and I would look up and meet his eyes by accident, and they would blow straight through me, as if he could see my guts and everything I had ever said or done.
This is why it gets me: You’ve never seen those eyes. Yet you love him.
It takes my breath away, and at the same time, it doesn’t surprise me at all. He’s the kind of man who can capture the whole world with a word. He captured you, and he set you free. You’ve never seen him. You love him.
And though you don’t see him now, you believe in him. It wasn’t a passing love you had, that blew away with the first autumn winds. It was a love that deepened into trust. So that even though you never saw him when he was here, you believe he’s alive. You believe he’s coming back. He’s your rescuer, and you are confident that he is powerful and true.
Isn’t it a joy to have such a one coming for you? It is the most joyful thing to believe in someone while feeling the safety that comes from knowing your belief is well founded. You are resting secure on a place that will not drop you or let you be put to shame. And so since it is HIM you believe in, you rejoice with an inexpressible joy.
Do you know the value of that joy? Do you feel the momentum of it in a world that is so laden with sadness and pain? It is a force to be reckoned with. It lifts, like a balloon, and everyone can see the effects whether they realize it or not.
It’s funny. Waiting in joy, with certain belief that rescue is coming...it’s a little bit as though you were rescued already. And although you still live out each day of your exile, so that not a single second of actual time is shortened, the experience of exile is changed. You are not saved yet. The final revealing of the Beloved, when he rides in on the white horse and wipes away every tear, that is not here. But knowing it is coming, knowing He is coming, it brings a kind of rescue for the heart, a salvation not yet of the body but of the soul.
1 Peter 1:8-9 Though you have not seen him, you love him. Though you do not now see him, you believe in him and rejoice with joy that is inexpressible and filled with glory, 9 obtaining the outcome of your faith, the salvation of your souls.
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