Awake My Soul

Dearly Beloved, 

Luke 17 is full of imagery and good nourishment for the soul.  The soul needs reassurance, but also needs some spiritual awakening.  

Christ spoke about the time of Noah and Lot.  During that time, people had a kind of mentality that was no different from today.  They eat, drink, marry and remarry.  It was a 'business as usual'.  It's not that these things are forbidden or should be forbidden.  We are not puritans.  The concern is that while the body is nourished, the soul is malnourished.

The story of Noah and Lot both speak of two actions that are carried out by God.  And these two actions occur simultaneously.  God is faithful to the covenant by bringing deliverance.  But God will also cast judgement upon people.  Deliverance and judgement are inseparable.  

If a flood pushes me to go to the rooftop of my house, the last thing I would worry about is trying to salvage the things within the house.  I cannot salvage the things I cannot take with me to heaven.  I have to leave them behind.  Lot's wife turned into a pillar of salt because she was looking at the things left behind.  Will I be caught looking back, rather than looking forward to heavenly glory.  

The truth is that God will give you what you want.  If you want things of the earth, God will give it.  But those things have an expiration date.  If you desire the things of heaven, God will give it to you.  And the things of heaven are different.  They have no expiration date.  They are eternal.

At the parousia, which in Greek, means the second coming of Christ, it will be a big surpise.   Some will be taken and others will be left behind for judgement.  If I don't know when this will happen, I have to be ready. 

I have to be ready!  Not next week, or the following year.  Not when I am in the mood and feel like it.  Not when I am retired.  Not when I have children that needs catechism.  Not when I am old and frail.  Not when I have cancer of some merciless disease.  I have to be ready now.  I have to be prepared NOW.  

Christ says two people in bed and one will be taken and the other will be left behind.  Two people will be grinding.  In other words, some will be sleeping when it occurs. Others will be working.  In other words, God's deliverance and judgment will happen unexpectedly.  And it will happen at one time throughout the world.  

"Where the body is, there the vultures will gather."  The scavengers will look for those who are alive but spiritually dead.  When the time is ripe, Deliverance and Judgment will take place.  Be ready and prepared.  Be prepared now. 

Here is an antidote against complacency and presumption.  

Not all, but some Jewish Rabbis taught their students this consoling perspective.  

Father Abraham would stand at the gates of hell and block his descendants who were going there by accident, just because they know him and are his descendants.  

Yohanan the Baptizer would say to this: "Don't count on it."