The Time is Now

“Now concerning that day and hour no one knows—neither the angels of heaven nor the Son —except the Father alone. As the days of Noah were, so the coming of the Son of Man will be. For in those days before the flood they were eating and drinking, marrying and giving in marriage, until the day Noah boarded the ark. They didn’t know until the flood came and swept them all away. This is the way the coming of the Son of Man will be. Then two men will be in the field; one will be taken and one left. Two women will be grinding grain with a hand mill; one will be taken and one left. Therefore be alert, since you don’t know what day your Lord is coming. But know this: If the homeowner had known what time the thief was coming, he would have stayed alert and not let his house be broken into. This is why you are also to be ready, because the Son of Man is coming at an hour you do not expect. Matthew 24:36-44 (CSB)

These are the final teachings of Jesus just before he is betrayed, and they turn quite ominous. Obviously, given his own dark fate. There is an eternal element to his teaching. It’s not all philosophy of living, or wisdom literature. His whole life is not just fishing in Galilee, else the Gospels would read quite differently. Rather, his life speaks about things of eternal consequence.

I have the (mis)fortune of being with many people near the end of their lives, and near the end, you begin to see the things that truly mattered in life. I mean really matter. We all know most of them already, although like addicts we continue to chase the things that don’t matter at all. Money. Power. Status. Ego. Vanity. Business. It should go without saying, but none of these things matter. They really, really don’t.  In fact, some of the worst divisions late in life emerge because of each of them. 

By the end, you begin to see the culmination of the choices around which a person makes in his or her life. Who still surrounds you? Who stands by your side? Who mourns your passing? In mid-life, you can still fake it to some extent. Maybe your job, your charisma, or your wealth makes you popular enough to be in demand and wanted, to a certain degree, but near the end, no one cares anymore. Especially when you become a burden. Most will leave when it’s hard to be with you. The real awareness of this truth, I hear, begins at retirement when once we picked up the phone and people responded, fewer do when we have less influence. It doesn’t come back. I remember passing one miserable, barren door in a hallway filled with cards and flowers in a retirement community on my way to see someone else. I asked who he was, and someone said, “Oh, that’s a retired General. No one comes to see him at all.” 

He commanded many, and now he was all alone. And this is effervescent next to what Jesus speaks about. He gives us the deep weight of our eternal choices, in a somber moment in his own life. He reminds us that the choices we make aren’t just important for our funeral or our legacy, but bears eternal weight. A forever kind of thing. That he treats this ominously ought to bear to its significance. We ignore Jesus and sanitize the cross to our own peril. If God is love, then the absence of God is the opposite of love. It’s the worst despair anyone can imagine, beyond the worst Hollywood movie. It’s what leads Jesus to where he will go. And those who continue to rebel against God, will get their ultimate desire — to be without him (Revelation 20:11-15). For love can never force. Never obligate. But brutal abuse and rebellion is not welcome in the coming Kingdom.

This is not what you want! Jesus warns those around him. But it is the consequence of your choice. Despite the Father doing all that he can to draw us back in, some Prodigal children stay prodigal. As he looks to his disciples just before the garden Jesus says, be careful that you make the right choices. For the things we chase in this world will fade away, and quickly. Gone in a snap. Life itself is over in a moment’s notice. But life with (or without) God continues on, forever. 

There’s an urgency and a sadness to this plea, as he himself faces his own final choice. Don’t assume you have time! We always assume we have time. Time to take a vacation. Time to rest. Time to enjoy, We talked about this one before . Time to reconcile with those whom we have hurt. Time to set things right. And time to reorder our lives and to be made right with God. 

We don’t. He says. In the snap of a finger it will all change. And those who chose God and his desires will go on, leaving behind the others to their own choices.

“Not everyone who says to me, ‘Lord, Lord,’ will enter the kingdom of heaven, but only the one who does the will of my Father in heaven. On that day many will say to me, ‘Lord, Lord, didn’t we prophesy in your name, drive out demons in your name, and do many miracles in your name?’ Then I will announce to them, ‘I never knew you. Depart from me, you lawbreakers!’ Matthew 7:21-24 (CSB)

The time to choose is now.