One cloudy day last week, I was staring out the window, watching it rain. The skies were fairly overcast, but there was a thin spot in the clouds that appeared in front of the sun. I know you’re never supposed to look at the sun, but the clouds were just thick enough to prevent my eyes from being fried and just thin enough to let a bright patch of light through. There was just enough light beaming through to remind me of the powerful sun behind those clouds, and it came through the little tunnel-like hole in the clouds and pierced the dreary sky. I stared at it, captivated by the contrast of light and darkness.

In that moment a thought struck me: Is this what it will look like when Jesus returns? What will that moment be like when the whole world stops what it’s doing to look up at the sky and sees the glory of the Son of God piercing the sky? What will we think? What will we say? What will that trumpet sound like when it’s blown to signal the end of time and the dawn of eternity? What will each heart feel when the realization rushes in and floods each corner and crevice of your soul that the God of the universe has come to make himself unmistakably known? What will it be like to be arrested by the overwhelming sense of awe at the glory of the Son of God?

Then as quickly as it had formed the clouds shifted again, and just like that it was gone. The light vanished, and the skies were the usual grey that they are during rain showers. 

Make no mistake about it, the moment when Jesus returns will not come and go so inconsequentially as a thin spot in the clouds above the earth. That moment will change everything. It will signal that the time of testing and preparation is over. The thousands of years of God’s activity on earth—the calling of Abraham, the choosing of Moses, the formation of a people, the rise of a kingdom, the ministry of the prophets, the birth of a certain Jewish boy in the city of David, his ministry and self-sacrifice, the birth and establishment of a fledgling new faith community, years of worship and struggle and failure and renewal by generations of that community—it will all culminate in that moment when God completes the plan he formed before time began and invites his people into his very presence. “For the Lord himself will descend from heaven with a cry of command, with the voice of an archangel, and with the trumpet of God. And the dead in Christ will rise first. Then we who are alive, who are left, will be caught up together with them in the clouds to meet the Lord in the air, and so we will always be with the Lord. Therefore encourage one another with these words” (1 Thess. 4:16-18).