If you knew...

Today's Scripture

In today's Gospel, the apostles and the other followers of Jesus want to know when all of the chaos will happen. On top of that, they want to know what sign will tell them that it is time for these things to occur. The question that came to my mind was this: Why? Why do they want to know? What will they do with that information?

In the early Christian church it was common for people to delay being baptized until the last possible moment. The reasoning: they would have less opportunity to sin at the end and therefore increase their chances of going to heaven. What they didn't understand is that the sacraments are intended to be entered into with a proper disposition of the heart.

I did a quick search for books that are written on the topic of prophecy about the end times and there are literally hundreds of books. They all attempt to read into scripture and compare with events that are currently occurring. I can't even comment on the validity of their observation, but I still have the question: why do they, or we want to know?

If our reason for wanting to know is that we will act differently, we should question if we are really following Jesus or just trying to avoid hell. The Christian life is about LIVING in the way that Jesus did. It's not about trying to game the system and end up in the right spot at the right time. We have to be willing to have our life CHANGED by Jesus on an everyday basis. If we would only change our life if we knew the end was coming, then we should ask ourselves why we wouldn't change RIGHT NOW.

We cannot continue to look at a Christian life as something less, one where we are 'missing out' on all the fun that sinners are having. This is just not true. A life that says 'do not be terrified when you hear of wars and insurrections' sounds pretty good. A life that promises 'complete joy' in this world and the next is also awfully attractive. We will only ever experience all that the Christian life has in store for us if we sell out to it.

Live a life that welcomes the end if it's coming and welcomes another day if we have the chance to live it. Pray for those whose happiness is tied to knowing what comes next.