Our Lives Will End
- Deacon Dan DeLuca
- Nov 11, 2022
- 5 min read
Asside from our birth, there is one other event that each and everyone of us will go through some day, our death. For all us, one day, our lives will end. That can be a scarry thought, that is if you don’t have faith. Through faith we believe in the revelation of God, the revelation that tells us death is not the final event in our lives. Rather, it is a transtition, a transition into eternal life. However, there are two paths that trransition can take. One path leads to heaven, to eternity with God. The other path leads to hell, to eternal seperation from God. How we live our lives will determine which path we take.
The Coming of the Kingdom
Being asked by the Pharisees when the kingdom of God was coming, he answered them, “The kingdom of God is not coming with signs to be observed; nor will they say, ‘Lo, here it is!’ or ‘There!’ for behold, the kingdom of God is in the midst of you.” And he said to the disciples, “The days are coming when you will desire to see one of the days of the Son of man, and you will not see it. And they will say to you, ‘Lo, there!’ or ‘Lo, here!’ Do not go, do not follow them. For as the lightning flashes and lights up the sky from one side to the other, so will the Son of man be in his day. But first he must suffer many things and be rejected by this generation. Luke 17 : 20-25
Scriptural Analysis
This passage opens with a question being posed to Jesus, when will the kingdom of God come? Later in Luke’s Gospel, we will see the disciples ask about the place where the things described by Jesus will happen. This shows that there is a temporal understanding of the kingdom. This particular question is interesting, and it was phrased the way it was because, as been their portrayal in Luke’s Gospel all along, the Pharisees are antagonistic to Jesus. Jesus has been proclaiming that the kingdom of God has arrived yet their question asks when it will come indicating a clear lack of understanding.
Between the questions, Jesus is going to deal with eschatology, the end times. This is his first such discourse on that topic in Luke’s Gospel. He will touch on it again in chapter twentyone. These particular discourses can get rather confusing as the words Jesus uses can mean several different things. The words he uses in the later discourse seem to foretell of the destruction of the temple in AD 70, however, those words also seem to talk about his glorious return. In this first speech, given the backdrop of his continued journey to Jerusalem, it looks like he is talking about his imminent arrival in the city as well as his death which can be viewed as a symbol of the city’s destruction.
It is possible the question posed by the Pharisees arouse out of their hearing the Lord’s prayer. Jesus explains to them that the coming of the Kingdom is not an observable event. Rather even now it is among them since Jesus, the king, is present. However, the kingdom is not fully present as it will be in the end times, so we must continue to pray for it to come.
Jesus then tells his disciples what will unfold in the future. He talks about their longing to see even one of the days of the Son of Man. There are two potential manings to this passag. First, it can refer to the absence caused by the death of Jesus. Second, tt can also apply to the fact that after Jesus’s ascension the disciples long for his return.
The disciples should not run after those who claim he is here or there. Jesus’s glorious return will be unmistakable However, before that can happen he must be put to death. He reminds the disciples what awaits him in Jerusalem using the same words as the first prediction of his passion. Those rejecting him belong to this generation which compares them to the evil generation in the days of Moses, “this evil generation.” (Deuteronomy 1:35)
Daily Application
Jesus’s discourses on the end times are challenging to deal with from a practical perspective. Why should I concearn myself with the end times when I am struggeling to figure out how to pay for groceries amind rising inflation? The answer to that question lines within the question itself. All of this day to day worry and struggle will one day come to an end. When that does the only thing that matters is what side we are on: whether we are a sheep or a goat. (Matthew 25:32) Do we spend eternity in heaven or in hell.
There is nothing more important than the state of our soul: nothing. There is not a single wordly problem or crisis that should every be placed in front of that. This is why Jesus addresses this particular topic so many times in his teaching. Yet for so many of us, our lives do not reflect this. We spend a significant amount of our time and energy worried about worldly problem and barely a second worried about eternity.
How many people wake up every morning and go to the gym? Now, thers is nothing wrong with maintaining physical health but what if you cut down your gym time and spent part of that time in the adoration chappel at Church? What if your top priority was your spiritual health and not your physical. How many times do we run for a bite to eat during our lunch break? What if instead we found a daily mass time and fed our soul instead? How many of us gather around the television at night to watch a ball game? What if instead we gathered around an image of God and prayer the Rosary or read from the Bible. Imagine if the most important thing we did each and every day was related to the world to come and not of this world.
Each year the Church reminds us of the fact that we will die at Ash Wednesday service. As the ashes are placed upon one’s head in the shapre of the cross theese words are said, “Remember that you are dust, and to dust you shall return.” We are going to die. That is inevitable for each and every one of us. Let our lives reflect that fact so that when that day comes we may find ourselves amongst the sheep and not the goats.
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