Luke 9: 43b-45 Pay Attention

Luke 9: 43b-45 Pay Attention

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Life is a battle. Every battle has its casualties. In our pacifist mentality of today, many consider the dead the losers, regardless of which side they are on. But every battle is part of a greater war! We are in a great battle because we are in a great war! The sides are being chosen: I can either say “Yes” to God or “No” to him. Maybe is a waste of time. It means that another will decide for me. My Yes means eternal life. My No means eternal death. What battle, what war could be more important, more meaningful and more rewarding than the battle for eternal life!

C.S. Lewis, in the Great Divorce, reminds us that there are only two kind of people in the world: Those who say “Thy Will be done!” and those who say, “My will be done!” There can be no marriage between Heaven and Hell. It is either Light or Darkness; Confusion or Clarity; Freedom or Slavery; Love or Loneliness; Life or Death. The worst thing that could happen to me is not death, but to die on the wrong side.

“I do not think that all who choose wrong roads perish; but their rescue consists in being put back on the right road. A sum can be put right: but only by going back till you find the error and working it afresh from that point, never by simply going on. Evil can be undone, but it cannot ‘develop’ into good. Time does not heal it.” (C.S. Lewis, preface to the Great Divorce)

Qoheleth must have spent hours observing nature and man. He was a wise man, maybe nearing the end of his life. He had eyes to see and ears to hear. But most importantly, he had God to breathe! He understood that life had no taste, no understanding and no endurance if God was not in our midst. For Qoheleth, life is vanity because God is not under the sun, in our midst. This wise man came, he saw, but he could not conquer his words because he lived a few too many years before the Word, the Son of Man, Emmanuel; God in our midst. The Jews were courageous to put a book like this among the sacred writings. This book has just the facts but few answers. Life has no meaning under the sun. But life does have meaning under the Son!

Pay attention to what I say, “The Son of Man is to be handed over to men.” What is good, what is holy, what is beautiful cannot exist on earth. It will eventually be torn down, ripped apart and brutally put to death. The same goes for the Catholic Church. Hell rules the earth. There is no mixing between Heaven and Hell, good and evil, Saints and sinners. “If we insist on keeping Hell (or even Earth) we shall not see Heaven: if we accept Heaven we shall not be able to retain even the smallest and most intimate souvenirs of Hell” (C.S. Lewis). The Lord told us himself, I called you from the world and you no longer belong to it. The moment we say “Yes” to God, we are an enemy of the State, of the world. The two cannot live together in peace and harmony. The two were meant to be divorced, forever. Evil will always attempt to turn good into evil, and evil into good. The Lord is asking us to draw the line in the sand. Choose Life! Choose me! Life is a battle, it can be brutal. The Lord warns his Apostles. The Lord warns us. We must choose sides today.

Instead of men being handed over to God for judgment, the Lord allows himself to be judged by man. This is the way of the world. It is upside down. “If you put Earth first, you will find Hell. If you put Earth second only to Heaven, you will find the beginning part of Heaven itself.” (C.S. Lewis)

Let go. Cut Loose. Give more. Forgive more. Love more!

Pay attention.