welcome

There was a crowd already gathered in the entrance to the superstore when I went to do some shopping there this afternoon. A crowd of no small size.

And the moment I walked through the doors they broke out in eager, spontaneous, rapturous, thunderous applause!

It's not the sort of welcome I'm accustomed to when entering a shop (or anywhere, for that matter!): and it quite took me aback for a moment or two.

I mean, what had I done to warrant such fulsome acclaim? I racked my brain in vain. Was I the millionth shopper to have walked in through their doors? Something like that?

All sorts of thoughts ran through my mind in the thousandth of a second that it took between my hearing their applause and my grasping what was really going on.

It wasn't for me at all, of course. The applause.

My entrance coincided with the ending of a little speech some guy promoting whisky had been giving to a crowd of listening shoppers who had gathered there.

And because there were freebies on offer and the bagpipes were coming next, well, they were all enthusiastic in the clapping and applauding that they gave!

Burns Night! I should have guessed immediately.

But strangely in that instant when I walked in through the door, it felt as if the welcome was for me.

My mind was not on Burns at all, I must confess. I'd just come from the funeral I'd conducted. My mind was working still along some rather different (but related) lines.

The welcome that we may receive from the Lord at the end of our earthly lives. I was thinking of that.

When we die and our time here on earth is all done - what next? Will we look back with all sorts of wistful regrets? Or be bathed in the grace of a rapturous welcome from Christ? His big "Well done, you good and faithful servant..."

So you can see why I found myself slightly taken aback when I entered the store!

As I've said before, though, a funeral tends to dominate the day. Especially when it's pretty much in the middle (this was early afternoon).

It's never a thing I can do or approach in a routine sort of way. It's like being there at the finishing line of a long and arduous race. It's one of the major marker posts in a person's and family's life.

It's a big deal. Always.

And I can't prepare for services such as that - far less conduct the things - without myself being challenged by the finitude of life.

My life. The way the days just shoot on by. And how I've long since passed the half way mark (unless I live to 110 or more I suppose!).

To live my life in such a way that God's own rapturous welcome at the last is what I can expect - well, that's the way I want to live I guess. Each day.

That's whay I've always thought the welcome that we give to folk is absolutely vital all the time. It's a foretaste, a glimpse, a tiny little picture of the way God wants to be in all our lives.

So when I'm preparing for Sunday, as I was the large part of today, I guess it's that, as much as anything else, I'm hoping to convey.

The welcome that the Lord extends to us in Jesus Christ. The open-armed, enthusiastic welcome which he gives to one and all. I want people to feel that. To know that. For that to be the heart of their experience.

And every part of all our public worship, thus, should give to all who share in it a flavour of the welcome which awaits us at the end.

I mean, if walking into a superstore and being 'hit' by that applause can bowl me over as it did, then what will heaven do!!

The bulk of my time today, then, as I say, has been spent in preparation.

I did pop across to the school at one point, to hand some information to the teacher of the P5 class. And I did pop round to a local home as well.

But mainly it was solid preparation. There are three communion services this coming Sunday, so there's a fair bit required in terms of preparation.

And I'm thinking through it all, as I say - how best can I give folk a feel for the welcome we're given in Christ?

I want folk to feel what I felt myself today.

Applauded, acclaimed and welcomed with obvious delight.

I mean, it lasted for at best a milli-second, truth be told!

But for that marvelous, albeit very fleeting milli-second, it was like I got a breath of heaven's air!

It was, as indeed it will be, just wonderful.