A few weeks ago I ordered some copy paper online and within two hours a deliver van pulled up in front of the house and set the paper in the porch. Amazing. I don’t wait long for anything. Our world of immediate delivery and instant gratification spoils me, and now if I cannot get my copy paper until tomorrow I’ll walk around and pout.

Quite the opposite, the biblical prophets waited thousands of years for the culmination of God’s work in this world. Peter wrote: the prophets, who spoke of the grace that was to come to you, searched intently and with the greatest care, trying to find out the time and circumstances to which the Spirit of Christ in them was pointing when he predicted the sufferings of the Messiah and the glories that would follow.

Peter followed with this remarkable sentence: It was revealed to them that they were not serving themselves but you, when they spoke of the things that have now been told to you by those who have preached the gospel to you by the Holy Spirit sent from heaven.

The hope and study and prayers of the prophets reached their pinnacle in the person of Jesus Christ. This message preached to the early Christians and repeated all the way to our day anticipates the coming of the Chosen One. Even angels longed for a glimpse.

In this era, the Holy Spirit reveals truth to all who follow Jesus. People say that the long arc of history points to justice. Actually, the long arc of history points to Jesus. Enjoy this end of the arc.

1 Peter 1 in reading the Bible in 2023

Photo by Wade Allen