c. 1998 Religion News Service

(Tom Ehrich is a pastor, writer and software developer living in Winston-Salem, N.C.)

UNDATED _ In our ongoing sampling of Saturday morning breakfast places, my seven-year-old son and I visit Mr. Waffle and quickly add another entry to the”Great”category. Were it not for a smoky haze over every booth, this might even be our third eatery rated as”Excellent.” But it is an event later in the day that truly is”excellent.” The doorbell rings. It is my son’s friend Dylan! We thought they had already left for Florida, where Dylan’s father has an exciting new job. I had been sorry they left abruptly.”We wouldn’t leave without saying goodbye,”says the boy’s mother. She visits for a while, then leaves Dylan to play with my son. They frolic outside, help a little with yard chores, tussle over who gets to use the clippers, eat macaroni and cheese in front of”Anastasia,”tussle some more, and generally have a wonderful time.

By 8 p.m. playtime is over, and it is time for two friends to have closure. They don’t recognize it as closure, of course. They make vague plans to meet again some day. But this is their chance to say goodbye. Whatever history they have had together can come to an end. Even in childhood, proper goodbyes matter.

Faithful people have struggled to comprehend what Scripture means by that final moment known as”judgment day,”or”parousia,”or”the end of time,”or”when the Son of Man comes.”(Just listing a few names for it makes me weary. Theology can take the fizz out of seltzer.)

Triumphalist believers, never daunted by mystery, routinely enlist”judgment day”as an ally in their never-ending battle against wrong opinion. Sort of an eternal”just you waitâÂ?¦.”As if the God who tenderly gathers, feeds and forgives his sheep suddenly will be unmasked as an angry, vindictive tyrant who has been keeping score all along.

Their smugness yields the”believe in Christ or burn in hell”tract that is stuck beneath my car’s windshield wipers while my son and I shop after breakfast. (“What is it, Dad?”he asks.”Obscene literature,”I reply.)

I don’t claim to have unlocked the mystery. But having watched my son and a friend say goodbye, I wonder if the end-time has to do with closure. Not a parceling out of treasures, like the reading of the will in a lawyer’s office, but a goodbye, a wrapping up of whatever adventure God is on in this flash of creation.

Surely it is clear to us by now that God is engaged in something that we don’t begin to comprehend. The testing of Abraham defies human logic. So do God’s remorse after the Flood, God’s forgiving of David, God’s sadness over Jerusalem, God’s calling of prophet after prophet to reach the unreachable.

Most inexplicable is the coming of Jesus, a brief moment that undid 10 centuries of legalism, revealed God not as humankind writ large, but as compassionate beyond measure, in visceral solidarity with the poor, and wanting from us nothing more _ or less _ than love.

At some point, it ends. Maybe with a massive announcement of the final scores, as many hope, but maybe just an end, a farewell, a stopping of one thing and, as it were, a move to Florida.

We wouldn’t behave this way. We’d want to see the scores posted. But we aren’t God. It may be we aren’t the least bit like God. Maybe in God’s reality, this final goodbye is just that: a hug, a word of encouragement, a loving last glance, and then an end.

I do know that keeping score isn’t the same as living. My son and I rate the restaurants as a game. It helps him see his world. But the point is being together.

I also know that striving in order to gain reward isn’t the same as living faithfully. The score-minded use the threat of retribution to compel obedience, but that’s just mean humanity seeking control, tract-purchasers littering a parking lot, lazy preachers shouting at people, the way a lazy parent shouts at a child rather than go to the child’s side.

DEA END EHRICH