Thursday 18 May 2023
St John I
Acts 18:1-8. The Lord has revealed to the nations his saving power – Psalm 97(98):1-4. John 16:16-20.
Follow Jesus into love and service of others
‘What is this “short time”?’ We Christians might ask that still. Coming up on 2000 years does not quite sound like a ‘short time’. Every now and then groups become convinced the end of the world is at hand. Their reactions seem often to be counterintuitive to what followers of Jesus might be expected to do. But we cannot judge their urgency too harshly. The early apostles, not least St Paul, assumed the end was coming fast.
What are we to do? Wait, it seems. Recognising that God’s time and our time are not the same thing. Ours should not be a passive waiting, though. We should heed the urgency of Jesus’ injunctions to follow him into love and service of others. We should remember too that we are waiting for a joy that will complete us. Holding the balance of our response to the needs of our world and our need to wait for the Lord might just be the Christian challenge.
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