SCALE!

Good friends of mine had their first baby last week. A hospital visit was due, to pay my respects to the proud couple and to the new arrival. Not knowing my way around this place or where the Maternity Hospital was located, I decided to go with Peter, headed to the same place for the same purpose.

Peter suggested I meet him at his place 30 min before the end of visiting hours at the newborn wing. I was surprised. We meet to go to another place just half-an-hour before closing time?

Now you must remember I hail from the Dallas/Ft. Worth Metroplex. A megapolis extending about 10,000 sq. miles, packed with 6 million of the country’s best denizens, the fifth largest metropolitan area in the U.S. Where any trip, to any place, at any time, for any reason, by any mode of transportation, takes at least two hours! A good 50% of one’s life there is spent sitting on Interstate 635, affectionately known to natives as “LBJ”, a.k.a. “the world’s largest parking lot”. One could shave off a few percent of that time if one were to commandeer the other main artery, Highway 190, also endearingly named after a President— “George Bush” (the first, POTUS #41). Of course, by tracking this alternative trajectory, a good 50% of the average Texan’s income is spent appeasing the toll machines on “George Bush” that ruthlessly and relentlessly extract their sacrifices. Either way, you lose.

Aberdeen, Scotland (est. ca. 1179), on the other hand, is a different story altogether. 100 square miles. By population (about 200,000), somewhere in the 40s in rank among U.K. cities.

Even after having lived here over a year, the scale of things in this neighborhood hadn’t sunk into me yet. It takes only two minutes to get to any place, at any time, for any reason … walking! Incredible. Peter was right: it took us 42 seconds to get from his house to the hospital! (Of course, we did have to walk—alas!—50 yards from the car to the patient rooms, that took us another 78 seconds).

Two realms. Two scales. Two ways of thinking.

Likewise, it is often difficult for us earth-bound, temporally-tied beings to comprehend the difference in scale between the realm we occupy now and the one those who have placed their trust in Jesus Christ as their Savior from sin will inhabit for eternity. The difference in scale between those two domains is infinite—inconceivable, incomprehensible, incredible! And believers can look forward eagerly to …

Things which eye has not seen
and ear has not heard,
and which have not
entered the heart of man,
all that God has prepared
for those who love Him.
1 Corinthians 2:9

Indeed, a taste of that eternal reality is ours even now—on a scale that is unthinkable, undreamable, unimaginable.

Paul prays that believers might …

… know the love of Christ
which surpasses knowledge ….
Ephesians 3:19

And that they might possess …

… the peace of God,
which surpasses all comprehension ….
Philippians 4:7

All on a different scale in a different time at a different place!

For momentary, light affliction
is producing for us
an eternal weight of glory
far beyond all comparison,
while we look not
at the things which are seen,
but at the things
which are not seen;
for the things which are seen
are temporal, but the things
which are not seen are eternal.
2 Corinthians 4:17–18

Keep looking! Eternity’s a-coming! And it’s out of this world!