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TODAY,
TOMORROW, ALWAYS
Anyone
who eats this bread will live forever.
John 6:58 |
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In the Scripture above, Almighty God is inviting
us to partake in more than a mere luncheon. He
is asking us to come to a Heavenly Banquet —
a love feast.
Hearing this invitation, how do we respond?
Do we know what to say to these words of Jesus? "He
who eats My flesh and drinks My blood lives in
Me and I live in him. Anyone who eats this bread
will live for ever. (John. 6:56,58).
The New Testament writers tell us over-and-over
again, that God loves us so much He nourishes
us at the center of our being with His own Living
Presence in and through each of us.
In Jesus' own words, "Do not work for food
that cannot last, but work for food that endures
to eternal life" (John. 6:27).
There will be a new tomorrow,
there will be a brighter day.
There will be a new tomorrow,
love will find a way.
These lines are from a song an English pop-singer
sang over the airwaves several decades ago. It
was part of a trend in popular music in which
young people began to express real concern for
this new tomorrow. "I still believe in tomorrow
though my life is a mess today," they
sang in another song. This concern for tomorrow
was expressed also in a Broadway play at the time.
In it, a young man who had dropped out of school
and had been estranged from his parents, was now
addicted to drugs. Out of the depths of what he
sees as a hopeless situation he cries out, "How
I wish that life was a notebook so you could tear
out the part where you've made all the mistakes
and start over to the page that is fresh and clean."
A new start! A new page! A new opportunity!
A new tomorrow. Will love find a way?
Often, in the face of what we fear to be impending
disaster, the end of a dark tunnel is transformed
into an enlightened new beginning — a new tomorrow.
God is always doing that for us, and there may
be some of you who need desperately to know this
and to experience this.
In these times of tumultuous change, on all
levels of our lives, it is important for us to
realize that God is in the midst of it all. God
is ever-present at the cutting edges of our individual
lives — as a church, and as a Society.
It is important for us to realize that in the
midst of the turmoil and tension, God somehow
is opening up that new tomorrow.
It is important for us followers of Jesus the
Christ to realize that often it is in the most
tumultuous of times that we are given our best
opportunities to take some giant steps into a
new tomorrow.
One of the truly amazing things about the examples
of Jesus is that love does find a way. Nothing
we have done in life prevents the God of Love
from giving us a new tomorrow. No mistakes, no
wrong decisions, no wrongful act of any kind can
defeat God's Will to hold out the promise of New
Life. God is here to show us the way to blessed
new tomorrows, sometimes in the most surprising
and wondrous ways.
When newspaper reporter Marguerite Higgins was
covering the Korean War, she received a Pulitzer
Prize for her perceptive, sensitive stories. On
one occasion she wrote about being with the Fifth
Company of Marines, "It was early evening
and the Company had stopped the march to have supper.
The men were experiencing bone-deep fatigue, anxiety,
fear and death. One huge Marine was leaning back
against a truck eating his cold meal from a tin
can. He had been in the field for many days and
his clothes were stiff with dirt and cold. His heavily
bearded face, encrusted with mud, was almost expressionless
because of the immense fatigue he was feeling.
One correspondent in the small group of reporters
who were on the scene, asked that Marine a strange,
and perhaps insensitive question: 'If I were
God and could grant you anything you wish, what
would you want most?' The Marine stood motionless
for a few moments, then he looked up at the reporter
and said, 'Just
give me tomorrow.'"
We live in a world that is very uncertain of
its future. But, we pray, "Thy Kingdom come" because
we know that love has found a way and there will
be a tomorrow.
There will be a new tomorrow,
there will be a brighter day.
There will be a new tomorrow,
love will find a way.
There is a new tomorrow for us all. Because
love has found a way. This means that beginning
now, at this new moment, you can begin to work
more intensely at your own spiritual growth and
development — knowing that it is all worthwhile,
knowing that you really are going somewhere, knowing
that you and yours are in God's plan eternally.
You can enter into every aspect of your personal
life rejoicing in the absolute certainty that
God is always with you, ready to give you a new
start, a new opportunity, a new life — even through
and beyond death itself.
Moreover, we can redouble our efforts to resolve
problems in relationships and other areas of our
lives because we know that God is present to it
all — God is in the midst of it all.
The world out there is dark. There is much hopelessness
in it. It is dying for people to emerge with the
Light. Don't you hear it in the voices of people
all around you? Every day they are asking, "Is
there any Good News? Is there any sign of hope
we can point to? Is there any point to life itself?
Is there any point to our living and dying?"
And we are here to answer, "Yes, there
is Good News in the midst of all the bad news
Jesus' teachings continue to bring us knowledge of a New Life and
a new tomorrow, The knowledge of personal resurrection.
Who is dying? We're all dying — you and I.
And we should all be dying to reveal the Resurrection
Power of God to everyone we know. Through the
life we live, through the works we perform, we
should be dying to let it be known that there
is a new world coming.
We should be dying to let it be known that we
all count for something of infinite value in God's
creation..
We should be dying to let it be know that because
God loves each of us, each of us is worthy of
each other's love.
We should be dying to let it be known to others, As
Jesus let it be know to us, that even though we
die, we enter into New Life — Eternal Life —
with the God of Love.
Blessings,
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