1. Grace, mercy, and peace to you from God our Heavenly Father and our Lord and Savior Jesus Christ. Amen. The message from God’s Word on this 3rd Sunday of Easter is taken from 1 John 3:1-7, it’s entitled, “What Will I Look Like?” Dear brothers and sisters in Christ.
2. One of the familiar rituals of having a child is the relatives and friends who look into the face of the child and try to figure out who he or she looks like. The shape of the head, the color of the eyes or hair, the shape of the nose, the ears, the chin—they all hold forth the riddle of what this child will look like and who this child will look like when he or she grows up.
3. In our text today from 1 John 3, the apostle John writes about what God’s own children, you and I, will look like for eternity. He writes, “Beloved, we are God’s children now, and what we will be has not yet appeared; but we know that when he appears we shall be like . . .” (1 John 3:2). Like what, John? Come on! Give us a break! What Will I Look like When Jesus Appears? That question is asking how my whole eternity will look—and what my life, my future, will look like all the time we wait for Jesus to come back.
4. Time does not always bear out our predictions. Things change. Children whom we thought looked like this relative or that parent take on different characteristics as the days come and go and their bodies mature. Sometimes, it’s easy to see the face of the future in our children, other times, it’s hidden, with only glimpses of what will be revealed.
5. That is also true of us as Christians. Scripture often reminds us that here on earth we have but a vague glimpse of what will only be revealed when Christ comes again to bring to completion all things. Some of those passages are familiar to us. Paul describes how for now we look through the mirror dimly (1 Cor 13:12). It’s not that the surprise will be different from what we’ve been pointed to, but that the end result is beyond our human imagination (1 Cor 2:9).
6. As much as we want to know and predict the future that God is unfolding in Christ, we are limited by the fact that you and I live in an earthly world. We see through eyes that have the blinders of this present moment and of sin and death on them. What sustains us isn’t a clear picture of the future, but the promise and presence of God, who is with us now. We are now God’s children. He has restored us as his own in Christ, marked us as his own in Baptism, declared us righteous and holy in Christ. We cannot see beyond this except through the eyes of faith, and even then it’s not a clear vision of God’s future but our confidence that he will bring to pass what he’s promised.
7. For too many of us, this is not only a puzzle, but a problem. We stand where we’ve always stood, insisting that God reveal everything or we’ll believe nothing. We saw this at work last week in Doubting Thomas, who refused to believe what he didn’t see or touch for himself. When troubles touch our lives, we become Job, who demands to know why these afflictions have befallen him.
8. But God does not explain himself to us or give in to our stubborn demands. Instead, he points us to Jesus: “Beloved, we are God’s children now, and what we will be has not yet appeared; but we know that when [Jesus] appears we shall be like . . . him, because we shall see him as he is.” We shall be like Jesus. It’s enough to see Jesus. When you see him, you see your future. It’s enough to see Jesus. When you see him, you know what you’ll be. Remember that when Philip asked to see the Father, Jesus insisted that if he had seen Jesus, he had seen enough. He has seen the Father as much as the Father can be seen and known until our condition changes (Jn 14:8).
9. If you have Jesus, you have enough. He is the author who charts the course of what we shall be. He is the firstborn of the dead and the one who prefigures what we shall be. He is the glorious one in whom we hope, while here we live in this humiliation of a world still tinged by sin and death. If you have Jesus, you have enough.
10. In Hab 2:1–4, we read: “I will take my stand at my watchpost and station myself on the tower, and look out to see what he will say to me, and what I will answer concerning my complaint. And the Lord answered me: ‘Write the vision; make it plain on tablets, so he may run who reads it. For still the vision awaits its appointed time; it hastens to the end—it will not lie. If it seems slow, wait for it; it will surely come; it will not delay. Behold, his soul is puffed up; it is not upright within him, but the righteous shall live by his faith.’ ”
11. The vision is the canvas of our lives, and the painter is God. But the vision awaits its time, God’s time. Our lives do not unfold with a clear path into the future. Instead, we are left to trust in the God whose promise and presence is our hope and salvation. Because we aren’t the painter, we can’t always see or make out what’s on the canvas of our lives. It seems terribly slow at times, and we aren’t sure anyone’s in charge. But God calls us to patience and to wait for his work to unfold.
12. What God is painting on the canvas of our lives isn’t some reflection of our hopes, dreams, priorities, or desires. No, what God is painting on the canvas of our lives is nothing less than Jesus Christ. The old “me” is going, and the new “me” arises by the grace of God flowing from my Baptism. That new me looks an awfully lot like Jesus. This is God’s work, painting on the canvas of our hearts, identities, and lives. None of us is alone in not knowing fully what God is unfolding in us and among us.
13. God is also painting Jesus on the canvas of other Christians’ lives, giving them the same new identity you and I received in Baptism, that they might become like Christ even as we are becoming like him. Remember John the Baptist, who said, “He must increase, but I must decrease” (Jn 3:30). This is the work of God on me and my life—the covering up of all that is me and the slow revelation of all that is Jesus.
14. All creation groans in expectation of this future, the painting being complete, and the final revelation of all that will be but isn’t yet. For now, we live in this tension of waiting and trusting. You are not alone in awaiting this revelation, and neither am I. We wait the revelation of what is to come and what shall be—like people waiting for the painter’s strokes on the canvas to turn into a picture.
15. The brush of God is his Word—the written Word of Scripture and the visible Word of the Sacraments. Through these Means of Grace, God is at work in me and on me, painting Christ into my mind, heart, and life. But too often all I see are the individual brushstrokes—the twists and turns of life—instead of the completed and final picture.
16. Oh, we do see glimmers of his final masterpiece. Once we are in Christ, our lives do begin to look like his. John says in our text that we purify ourselves “as he is pure,” that we practice righteousness “as he is righteous” (1 John 3:3, 7). But this side of heaven, that’s always imperfect. We don’t see how he’s working or understand the timing of his work or recognize the image of what is becoming. For now, it’s enough that we trust in God to bring to pass what he’s promised and to reveal what he’s chosen.
17. So hang in there in Christ, as individuals, as a parish of his people, as a Church in mission. We are all works in progress. We are saved in Christ—the completed act of our Savior’s sacrificial death and life-giving resurrection. We are even now being saved, as through Word and Sacrament God bestows on us grace upon grace, working out in us our salvation. We will be saved on that day when this life is no more, when heaven and earth pass away and the new he has promised comes to fullness, when he returns in his glory and all creation stands before him to await his righteous judgment.
18. As parents bring a new child into the family and everyone wants to know who he or she will look like, we already know the only answer that counts—we shall be like Jesus. We may not see it yet, but that doesn’t mean it’s not underway. For now, it’s enough to know we are God’s children by Baptism and faith. It is our calling to wait for the rest to be revealed to us when he comes. For we know that we shall be as he is. Our future is dependent on Christ. He will transform our lowly bodies to become like his glorious body. He will lay to rest every doubt or fear that now chases us and our lives as Christians. He will finish the painting of our lives so that the work will be done and complete for all eternity. Finally, we shall see ourselves as God sees us, and that is the gift of Christ and the paradise of eternity. Amen. Now the peace of God that passes all understanding, guard your hearts and minds in Christ Jesus, until life everlasting. Amen.
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