God's Last and Loudest Word

(from Hebrews 1:1-4)

In a room somewhere long ago, a group of tired people unrolled a letter and leaned in to hear it read. Some of them were frightened. Some of them had begun to wonder whether God had stopped speaking to them altogether. Someone who loved them had written it, and this is how it began.

Long ago, the letter says, God spoke.

He never could hold his words back, not with children he loved this much. So he spoke a little here and a little there. He whispered to Abraham under the stars. He thundered to Moses on the mountain. He sang through the prophets, sometimes gentle, sometimes loud, sometimes in a dream in the dark. One word, and then years later another, the way a lamp is lit in one window and then in the next.

It was like a father calling from another room. You can hear that someone loves you, and you can catch the shape of the words, but oh, how you long to see his face.

Every one of those old words was true, and every one of them was leaning forward, pointing past itself to something more.

To Someone more.

In these last days, the letter says, God has spoken again. This time he said everything he had ever wanted to say, all at once, in one Word. And the Word is a person. His own Son.

All those years, all those whispers, were saving up for this. The Son is where the bright light of God shines out. The Son is what God looks like when you finally see his face. If you ever wondered what is inside God's heart, look at Jesus. Nothing is hidden anymore, and there is nothing more you have to wait to hear.

The same Son who made the very stars Abraham counted. The same Son who is holding the whole world up right now, this minute, with a word. He is the loudest, the clearest, the kindest thing God has ever said.

And when he had washed every stain off of us, he sat down. Right beside his Father, the way a son sits down when he is finally home and the great work is done.

So you do not have to press your ear to a closed door anymore, wishing.

The door is open. The Son has stepped out into the light, and his face, when you see it, is the face that was loving you the whole long time you were waiting. God has said his best and brightest Word, and he will never unsay it.