Face to Face

Hasn’t it been great to have a few of the restrictions unlocking in recent days so that we can see our friends and family face to face.

We still can’t go into other’s homes, and so there have been some chilly moments in gardens and parks, but it’s still wonderful to actually see people.

As a family, over the last couple of weeks, we’ve been able to catch up with all the grandparents too which has been lovely. It’s been a long wait for so many.

There’s nothing like seeing someone face to face. Zoom and facetime, emails and phone calls are all great, and I don’t know how we would have got through the last year without them, but there’s nothing like face to face. You avoid the painful delays, glitches, misunderstandings and miscommunications that sometimes happen with talking online. With zoom you can miss a whole sentence, because someone’s still on mute!

As a church at Christ Church Huntingdon we have just enjoyed 5 services over Easter that were face to face, [or as our good friends in the Huntingdon Parish call it, “in real life”]! And there’s no doubt that face to face services are after nearly a year of services that are online.

But it’s not just in modern day that people prefer face to face to distant communication. In the Bible, 2000 years ago, Jesus’ disciple John writes a letter to his friends and says, “I have much to write to you, but I do not want to use paper and ink. Instead, I hope to visit you and talk with you face to face, so that our joy may be complete”. (2 John 1:12)

And Paul, another of Jesus’ apostles, compared knowing God now to the reflections in a mirror, probably dim and distorted in those days. But he said, “For now we see only a reflection as in a mirror; then we shall see face to face”. (1 Cor 13:12).

We can know God now, but it’s not perfect. It’s like being on a zoom call. A bit distant, imperfect. Not that there’s anything imperfect about Him, or his communication, but you could say the bad signal is all at our end of the line! But Christians look forward to the day when Jesus comes back, and when we can see him face to face. “Then we shall see Face to face”. That will be wonderful.

Thank you for listening.

Followed by “Face to Face ”Gary Barlow & Elton John.

Charlie Newcombe 7/4/21