Lunch Line

He who has not the Son is condemned already. — John 3:18

He who has not their identification card must go to the back of the lunch line! — T-S school rules.

Every Tuesday I have lunch duty. I also have it on the occasional Friday. I don’t really mind it that much…all of us lowly teachers just take our turn when our number shows up on the rotation (I’m number 2).

Lately, I have been doing “line duty.” This pretty much consists of making sure the students are in a line, that they do not “crowd” the inside of the lunchroom, and most importantly…make sure they have their id cards. You see, if they have their cards, the ladies can scan the students very quickly with very little hold-up. If they do not, they have to manually enter their numbers, sometimes even having to look them up, and it holds up the line. Thus the rule is simple…those who do not have their id’s must go to the back of the line and wait on those who do. Every kid that brings their card thinks the rule is perfectly fair. The kids that do not bring it (usually the same ones)…hate the rule.

Now, I shouldn’t admit this, but some of the kids that don’t have their id’s I am glad to send to the back of the line. They give me a hard time in class…I get to enforce the rule and pay ‘em back a little bit! You know…what comes around goes around! Other kids, really good kids sometimes don’t have their id’s. They look all sweet and try to sweet talk their way through the line. I hate it for them…I really do, but they go to the back of the line.

The last time I did lunch duty, I thought of John 3:18. I believe the Lord was trying to tell me that this is how it will be when we stand before Him. I don’t know if we’ll all be in a line or not, but only one thing will matter. He will ask in some form or another “did you, or did you not love my Son, the Lord Jesus Christ?” I’m sure there are several who spit in His face their entire lives, let Him know they didn’t want anything to do with following Him, and lived accordingly. It’s not even a question…you treated Him poorly, therefore He says “depart from me, I never knew you.”

It’s easy for us to condemn the rapists, pedophiles, druggies, and others we consider a menace to society. But what about the people we would consider good? The Bible just goes ahead and tells us that there are no good people (see Romans 3:10, 3:23, and Mark 10:18) But, at least to us, there are people that we really like and genuinely think of as really good people. The only question that matters is this “Do they have the Son?” If they do not, they are already condemned! There are no second chances on the day of Judgment.

So now, I look at the lunch line a little differently. Just as many of them don’t carry their id’s…many in this world are walking around trying to live without the Son of God in their hearts. Many, many people carry Him to church for an hour before lunch on Sunday, but other than that…they don’t carry Him at all.

Suppose you are next in line…

Do you have the Son?

Later

Adam