Advent Devotional for Tuesday, December 5 on Luke 21:29-38
Do you know how many people sleepwalk through life? I’m just astounded at how many people live a day-to-day existence, in essence “working for the weekend.” It’s amazing, and disheartening, to see people live without real goals, without any awareness of the sad stories they are writing with their lives.
Jesus tells the crowds to “be on guard” and to “be alert” for his return. Otherwise, he says, the day will come as a surprise and they will not be prepared.
Even if we assume that we are not living in the last days (and who really knows?), we still should pay attention to Jesus’ teaching. So much of a life well-lived is being “on guard” and “alert” to the fact that time is not infinite. Whether or not Christ returns to us during our lifetime, we can be safely assured that we will return to Christ upon our death. This is a moment few of us prepare for; in fact, we often take great pains to hide that fact from our minds, afraid of facing our own mortality. And yet, to truly live well, we will recognize that our time here is not forever and that we must give ourselves as servants of Christ while we still can be a sturdy instrument of the Kingdom of God.
When we are aware that our time here is not infinite, we also realize that we have to stop sleepwalking through life. We can’t allow our lives to be about pursuits of dangerous pleasures; we can’t allow our lives to be about preserving our pride, or about just getting by. We have to invite God in and make our lives about discerning what he has for us, the good gifts and the adventurous life he freely gives us.
Jesus tells the crowds to “be on guard” and to “be alert” for his return. Otherwise, he says, the day will come as a surprise and they will not be prepared.
Even if we assume that we are not living in the last days (and who really knows?), we still should pay attention to Jesus’ teaching. So much of a life well-lived is being “on guard” and “alert” to the fact that time is not infinite. Whether or not Christ returns to us during our lifetime, we can be safely assured that we will return to Christ upon our death. This is a moment few of us prepare for; in fact, we often take great pains to hide that fact from our minds, afraid of facing our own mortality. And yet, to truly live well, we will recognize that our time here is not forever and that we must give ourselves as servants of Christ while we still can be a sturdy instrument of the Kingdom of God.
When we are aware that our time here is not infinite, we also realize that we have to stop sleepwalking through life. We can’t allow our lives to be about pursuits of dangerous pleasures; we can’t allow our lives to be about preserving our pride, or about just getting by. We have to invite God in and make our lives about discerning what he has for us, the good gifts and the adventurous life he freely gives us.
posted by Rev. Michael Jordan at 9:07 AM
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