Waiting for the Moment

As a part-time circulation assistant at the Culpeper County Library, I run into people from all walks of life. I often deal with people who have overdue fines on books (I too was one of them until I got this gig and thereafter received diplomatic immunity). Some people come up to the desk with remorse in their eyes, apologizing for the fines they just KNOW they have. I simply respond “I’ll be the judge of that,” then I check their account. Sometimes they owe nothing, and I smile and tell them that their account is clean.

One gentleman whom I see fairly regularly is a local judge.

The SAME judge whom I wrote about in my blog on February 4, 2009 (Here Come Da Judge).

Ever since I realized who he was, I have waited for him to come to my station at the circulation desk and ask the fateful question, “I think I owe some late fees.”

I waited and waited.

Monday, March 29th, 2010, he walked into the library, strode up to the desk, and informed me that he believed he owed something on books he just returned.

My insides bubbled.

I opened my mouth to talk, and I heard myself speaking. Like I was outside myself. It was surreal.

I told the judge “I’ll be the judge of that,” with a straight face.

He cocked his head to the side as if he didn’t understand.

“Huh?”

I smiled and replied, “I said, I’ll be the judge of that.”

He chuckled in response.

I hope I don’t face him behind his desk anytime soon.

I know what he’d say.

(BTW, he didn’t have any late fees)

Waiting. We endure it so often. We wait for spring to arrive with expectation. We wait for medical diagnoses with dread. We wait (hopefully we wait!) at red lights. We wait for the sun to rise after a sleepless night.

We wait.

We wait because we have hope.

When I was in college, I took a music appreciation class. The professor introduced many of us to Beethoven’s 5th Symphony. Like 99.9% of westerners, I was familiar with its beginning notes (G, G, G, EEEEEEE), but never had heard the entire piece. The professor shared that he once knew a student who hated classical music and wanted nothing to do with it. The professor told him to listen to Beethoven’s 5th (all forty plus minutes of it) in a dark room four times.

It cured the student of his hate for classical music.

Beethoven’s 5th is indeed an amazing piece. A music critic of Beethoven’s era, E.T.A. Hoffman, wrote the following:

“Radiant beams shoot through the deep night of this region, and we become aware of gigantic shadows which, rocking back and forth, close in on us and destroy all within us except the pain of endless longing—a longing in which every pleasure that rose up amid jubilant tones sinks and succumbs. Only through this pain, which, while consuming but not destroying love, hope, and joy, tries to burst our breasts with a full-voiced general cry from all the passions, do we live on and are captivated beholders of the spirits.”

Those are the same emotions I feel when listening to this piece!

Between the third and fourth movement there is a deep sense of anticipation. The third movement is very dreary. You slowly sink into a languid state where all hope seems to have been lost. But there’s a tiny flicker of light that suddenly explodes into glorious flames as soon as the fourth begins. A dizzying ride ensues to lofty heights.

Listen to it! The wait is worth it!

Easter is a glorious time for all who follow Christ because HE IS RISEN!

The gloom and despair of sin and death have lost their grip. We don’t have to be bound anymore by them. We can live in freedom and scale new heights never before dreamed of.

Because He lives, we as well can truly live.

Luke 24:1-10
But very early on Sunday morning the women went to the tomb, taking the spices they had prepared. They found that the stone had been rolled away from the entrance. So they went in, but they didn’t find the body of the Lord Jesus. As they stood there puzzled, two men suddenly appeared to them, clothed in dazzling robes.

The women were terrified and bowed with their faces to the ground. Then the men asked, “Why are you looking among the dead for someone who is alive? He isn’t here! He is risen from the dead! Remember what he told you back in Galilee, that the Son of Man must be betrayed into the hands of sinful men and be crucified, and that he would rise again on the third day.”

Then they remembered that he had said this. So they rushed back from the tomb to tell his eleven disciples—and everyone else—what had happened. It was Mary Magdalene, Joanna, Mary the mother of James, and several other women who told the apostles what had happened.


1 Corinthians 15:12-26
But tell me this—since we preach that Christ rose from the dead, why are some of you saying there will be no resurrection of the dead? For if there is no resurrection of the dead, then Christ has not been raised either. And if Christ has not been raised, then all our preaching is useless, and your faith is useless.

And we apostles would all be lying about God—for we have said that God raised Christ from the grave. But that can’t be true if there is no resurrection of the dead. And if there is no resurrection of the dead, then Christ has not been raised. And if Christ has not been raised, then your faith is useless and you are still guilty of your sins.

In that case, all who have died believing in Christ are lost! And if our hope in Christ is only for this life, we are more to be pitied than anyone in the world.

But in fact, Christ has been raised from the dead. He is the first of a great harvest of all who have died.

So you see, just as death came into the world through a man, now the resurrection from the dead has begun through another man. Just as everyone dies because we all belong to Adam, everyone who belongs to Christ will be given new life.

But there is an order to this resurrection: Christ was raised as the first of the harvest; then all who belong to Christ will be raised when he comes back. After that the end will come, when he will turn the Kingdom over to God the Father, having destroyed every ruler and authority and power.
For Christ must reign until he humbles all his enemies beneath his feet. And the last enemy to be destroyed is death.
(NLT)