Life goes on.

As it was in the days of Noah, so it will be at the coming of the Son of Man. For in the days before the flood, people were eating and drinking, marrying and giving in marriage, up to the day Noah entered the ark; and they knew nothing about what would happen until the flood came and took them all away. That is how it will be at the coming of the Son of Man.

Matthew 24:37-39

Do you know what the vast majority of people did on the day after 9/11? They got out of bed and went to work. Do you know what most did the day after Hurricane Katrina or the 2007 Tsunami or even Pearl Harbor? You're right. Unless it personally affected them, they got up and went about their business. 

Life goes on. Oftentimes, relentlessly so. 

People sometimes use this fact to try to give us hope in the face of tragedy. Hope that one day we'll get over our loss. But when your life has been touched personally by loss, the fact that everyone else goes on as if nothing happened can seem rather cruel. Your life feels like it's over, but everyone else barely seems to notice. 

Yet this unforgivable, unrelenting forward march of time and life is just what Scripture says will happen. right up until the very end. People will continue on with life as usual just as they do after every tragedy and loss. Even as God sends signs and warnings that the time is near, people will pay no attention. The vast majority will overlook the signs of Jesus' coming and keep on eating, drinking, and getting married like the world will keep on as it is forever.  

Yes, life will go on...until it doesn't. 

We know of course, that there will come a day when life as we know it stops. Jesus will return. The dead will be raised. We all will be judged. 

So what would Jesus have us do? How do we avoid missing the signs? In verse 42 Jesus tells us to "keep watch." Watch for Christ's return. Anticipate it. Look forward to it. In verse 44 Jesus counsels us to "be ready." Prepare yourself to meet your Maker. Get right with God today before it's too late! Lastly in verse 46 Jesus urges us to live in obedience to God's commands. Once you are right with God, live every day before Him like it might be your last. Be careful to fulfill all your duties to the Lord so you might hope to be rewarded in the afterlife not punished.

These Cows Are Making Me Look Bad (W.o.W. Rewind)

So they did this. They took two such cows and hitched them to the cart and penned up their calves. They placed the ark of the Lord on the cart and along with it the chest containing the gold rats and the models of the tumors. Then the cows went straight up toward Beth Shemesh, keeping on the road and lowing all the way; they did not turn to the right or to the left. The rulers of the Philistines followed them as far as the border of Beth Shemesh.

1 Samuel 6:10-12

In I Samuel 4 & 5 we read how the Philistines capture the Ark of the Covenant and bring it back to their land. In anger God smites them with plagues of rats and tumors. After quite a bit of heartache, the Philistine priests and diviners suggest a solution. They decide to make a new cart and place the ark on it. Then they will take two nursing cows away from their calves and hitch them to this cart. These cows had never been in a yoke or pulled a cart before. They had never been to Israel before. By nature everything in these cows would compel them to return to their calves immediately. The Philistines reasoned that if the cows were to return the Ark of the Covenant to Israel then they could be certain that it was indeed God who had been plaguing them. If not, then perhaps it was just a coincidence.

An amazing thing happened. Those two cows pulled the cart away from their calves and went straight up to Israel without turning to the right or to the left lowing all the way. Now, I don't know a lot about cows so I asked someone who does whether cows low when they are happy or sad. He told me that cows low when they are sad. And without knowing why I was asking the question, he added that when you take their calves away to wean them, cows will low and bawl for days.

You and I can learn a lot about how we should serve God from these two cows. Though it meant leaving their calves behind (possibly to die without their mother's milk), and though it meant that they themselves would be sacrificed to the Lord (I Samuel 6:14), these cows obeyed the Lord's leading and went straight up toward Israel. Oh that we would serve God with such faithfulness! Though the cows bawled over the sacrifice God was asking them to make, they still went straight up after God's will without wavering or turning to the right or left.

Now, one could argue that the cows didn't have a say in the matter. Who knows whether cows have some form of free will. Somehow I missed that class in seminary. But I do know this: when I stand before God and am judged for how obedient I was to Him and His word, I don't want to be showed up by any cows! So regardless of whether or not cows have free will before God, the simple truth is they followed God's bidding. And if a cow can do it, then I can too.

I know that there will be times when you and I mourn over what God asks us to sacrifice on the altar of His glory. Yet, even in our mourning let us go straight up after His will. Even if it means laying down our very lives, let's not stray to the right or to the left.

For further reading...

• I Samuel 4-6: Get the whole story.

Weep with the Weeping

When Jesus saw her weeping, and the Jews who had come with her also weeping, he was deeply moved in his spirit and greatly troubled. And he said, “Where have you laid him?” They said to him, “Lord, come and see.” Jesus wept.

John 11:33-35

We see Jesus' amazing empathy in action right before he raises Lazarus from the dead. John's gospel account makes it clear that Jesus is fully aware that within moments the weeping of those around Him will turn to joy. He knows He is going to raise Lazarus. Yet, Jesus still weeps. This is surprising, and important. 

Why does He weep? I think Jesus must have been weeping out of empathy for the pain and sorrow of those around Him. But notice that Jesus not only felt the pain, He entered into it. Jesus was a man of sorrows and acquainted with grief (Isaiah 53:3). He knows what it is to suffer. But instead of being hardened by His experiences, He learned how to relate to us more fully from it. Jesus understands the difficulty of daily life and empathizes with your pain. 

This tells us two things:

1. Your pain matters to God. He weeps when you weep.
2. It’s okay to mourn the death of our loved ones. Scripture says that believers should not mourn as those who have no hope, but it does not say that we shouldn't mourn. Jesus wept even when He knew resurrection was just around the bend. So it must be okay for us to weep when we lose a loved one, as long as we do not mourn as though there were no resurrection coming at all.

Do you weep with those around you? Do you feel their pain? 

Any of us who hope to follow the example of Jesus must learn show empathy like He did. Look for opportunities to take up the burdens of those around you, to comfort them or to simply join them in their pain. As you do, you will become more like the Savior.