Today’s Daily Lesson comes from 1 Corinthians chapter 15 verses 51 through 53:
51Listen, I will tell you a mystery! We will not all die, but we will all be changed, 52in a moment, in the twinkling of an eye, at the last trumpet. For the trumpet will sound, and the dead will be raised imperishable, and we will be changed. 53For this perishable body must put on imperishability, and this mortal body must put on immortality.
John Donne had a tremendous way with word and imagery and offered this vivid picture of the end of us all, high and low:
“When a whirlewind hath blown the dust of a churchyard into the Church, and the man sweeps out the dust of the Church into the Churchyard, who will undertake to sift those dusts again and to pronounce, This is the patrician, this is the noble flowre, and this the yeomanly, this the Plebeian bran?”
When all is said and done and the last rites have been spoken over our mortal flesh and a year passes or a 1,000, all the high and mighty kings of this earth shall not outweigh even the lowliest of the day laborers.
That should put everything mortal into perspective. That should pour contempt on all our pride about all manner of things. That should rid us of all haughtiness and pride. Arrogant? Envious? Here is the cure: imagine yourself and all those around you as dust. Imagine the future.
It’s all terrifying. It’s literally humiliating — humando, being Latin for the word “burying”. It’s also freeing.
We are human. We shall be buried. So shall our president. And our boss. And our nemesis. And our children. And our children’s children.
And then we shall wait.
And when the perishable puts on its imperishability and the mortal it’s immortality, it shall be God alone with breath.
It shall be God alone who will save us.
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