Today's Daily Lesson comes from Mark chapter 4 verses 18 and 19:
18 And others are the ones sown among thorns. They are those who hear the word, 19 but the cares of the world and the deceitfulness of riches and the desires for other things enter in and choke the word, and it proves unfruitful.
In Martin Scorsese's film "The Last Temptation of Christ", Jesus' final and most dramatic struggle with Satan comes in the temptation to come down from the Cross, marry, and live a nice and happy life. This is "the last temptation of Christ", a temptation which if given into would have meant that Jesus would not have in fact been the Christ. For their could be no Christ without self-renunciation, suffering, and Cross.
Today's Daily Lesson is a reminder to us that the ordinary desires and cares of this world are temptations for not only Jesus but also for all who follow him. We too would like to live quietly and peaceably, able to come home to our own homes and children without the burdens of our neighbors and their needs knocking on our doors. But the knocking persists, and those who follow Christ open the door. And the whole world comes in.
The word is sown in each of us. It is a word telling us to volunteer. To pay a visit. To sing in the choir. To go to a school board meeting. To raise our voice. But the cares of home and the desire for a quiet and calm evening and an ordinary and peaceful life choke out the word. Who knew just how subtle the temptation is, how shrewd the thorns of this world can be?
And at the end of four score and ten what is lost is the potential one single soul has to truly change the world.
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