Some find familiar faces that frame the memories of their
youth, and plunge into stories passed down through the years, embellished with
each cycle of telling. “Do you remember
when …?” The stories don’t even require
a complete telling. Laughter fills the
circle before the story can be told because everyone who is listening has
either heard it or told it countless times.
Others hang back along the fringe, looking puzzled, trying
to figure out who these people are and how they might be remotely related to
them. The young and the newly added “in-laws” are usually in this number. Sometimes they seek each other out to share
the common bond of amnesia regarding the inside jokes and familiar references
to names not present.
The reunion has a strange mix of sorrow and laughter.
Significant people are missing. Voices
that once echoed at the tables of past reunions are silent. Over the years, the same people who gather
for the reunion have gathered and wept at the funerals for those who no longer
come. Their memories are like the deep
colors that form the background for vivid paintings or the rich bass tones of
the cello and the french horn that enrich the orchestra. At the same time, these sorrows are offset by
giggling children who appear like bright colors that dance on the canvass,
whose laughter picks up future melodies like the flute.
We somehow have confidence that Heaven is about reunions. We
all look forward to seeing those we loved and those who loved us when we get to
Heaven. Somehow, this earthly reunion helps us look forward to that day. We don’t know exactly how it will happen or
how God could manage all the intertwined family relationships when we get to
Heaven, but, somehow, family reunions portend the Heavenly event. When I was a child we sang, “Will the circle
be unbroken?” It was a way to ask the
question together and look forward to something more perfect that God has
planned for us.
Jesus did not shy away from using this image to help us look
forward to a more perfect day. He said,
“In my Father’s House are many mansions.
If it were not so, I would have told you. I go and prepare a place for you that where I
am, there you may be also.” The book of
Hebrews uses this metaphor to spur us on to better living: “Seeing that we are
surrounded by so great a host of witnesses, let us run with patience the race
that is set before us, looking to Jesus the originator and the finisher of the
race.” It seems to me that God takes
pleasure in our reunions, just as He takes pleasure in reuniting Himself with
us through His Son.
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