Daily Lesson for December 5, 2016

Today's Daily Lesson comes from 1 Thessalonians chapter 5 verses 1 through 4:

Now concerning the times and the seasons, brothers, you have no need to have anything written to you. 2 For you yourselves are fully aware that the day of the Lord will come like a thief in the night. 3 While people are saying, “There is peace and security,” then sudden destruction will come upon them as labor pains come upon a pregnant woman, and they will not escape. 4 But you are not in darkness, brothers, for that day to surprise you like a thief.

If you've ever had your house or work robbed or been stolen from you know what a deep sense of violation is felt the moment the crime is discovered. What you thought was secure is suddenly now revealed to have been only falsely secure. The neighborhood, people, times, and world we put our trust in suddenly fail us.

By and large, we have to trust in the world, its people, and its institutions.  If we did not we would never leave the house. A sense of impending doom would paralyze us.

Yet at the same time, we are reminded that the things of this world are all temporary and our trust in them is then inherently proximate and therefore never ultimate. We know the thief will eventually come, but we do not live for fear of the thief's arrival because what the thief can steal -- while dear -- is worldly and temporary and will in the end be lost anyway.

"I do not give as the world gives," Jesus said. He was speaking in the context of the last night of his life when the world was soon to take him away.  Yet what he was leaving was a peace -- an abiding peace which cannot be taken away.

Sometime ago I was over at the house of a couple from church. He was very soon to have to put her into a memory care facility for her onsetting dementia. We talked for a while and laughed and hugged and wept over what was being lost. We made the most of the moment we had.

"Let's enjoy this time right here and now," I said, "because you never know what tomorrow will bring."

"You never know what tomorrow will bring," she parroted back to me and then looked at me with deadpan eyes and pointed with a kind and motherly finger and a single, wise, raised eyebrow, "And that is a good thing."