Write:
“All the peoples of the earth will lament him.” A direct translation of the Spanish reading from Revelation is: “All the peoples of the earth will mourn for their cause.”
Reflect:
What is it going to be like when Jesus returns? “Every eye will see him.” Every eye! No one will escape having to face Jesus. St. Paul says the same kind of thing in Philippians: “at the name of Jesus, every knee must bend, in the heavens on the earth and under the earth. And every tongue proclaim to the glory of God the Father, Jesus Christ is Lord.”
My primary question for you for this weekend is very simple: what is your cause? Who, or what, is most important for you? “All the people of the earth will mourn for their cause.”
If our cause is Jesus, we will see in his wounded hands, feet, and side a reason to 1) mourn that our sins caused his pain; but it will also be 2) a time of rejoicing, because we will see Jesus, the love of our souls, is now the King of the Universe. Because of his wounds, as I said in the opening prayer, we have been freed from slavery. The slavery of sin and death.
But what if your cause is not Jesus? What if your cause is not seeking the kingdom of God? You will mourn your cause for all eternity.
It is really that simple. Who are you working for? What is your cause? I see so many people chasing after wrong things. This issue, that issue, this job, that job, this car, that house. Yes, we need to be stewards of what we have, and offer our lives in service to our families, and that means having this thing or that thing, this car or that house. But first we must have Christ.
Apply:
I repeat my question: what is your cause? If your cause is Christ, you will mourn the failures to live fully in his way. If your cause is anything else, you will mourn the loss of that, and everything else.
Another way I have heard this put is: unless we say to God while we are still living, “thy will be done”, when it comes time for judgment, and God sees that our will is not set on him, he was say to us “thy will be done,” and we will find ourselves in hell.
Yet another way to look at this is that if Jesus is our cause, the mourning we will do will be purgatory. If anything else is our cause, the mourning will be hell.
Our Faith tells us He is coming. Are you ready?
Pray/Praise:
Almighty God, we have just finished celebrating Thanksgiving Day, and now we are facing the celebration of Christ the King, an even more glorious reason to give thanks. There are so many reasons for us to be thankful for what you have done, and what you continue to do.
But today we give thanks most importantly for what you have promised yet to do.
Help us to make a throne within our hearts for you to rest in. May our lives be always holy in you so that you find a place where you are welcome. Help us to make you the reason, the cause, for everything we do.
So much of this world seems not to accept your kingship, Lord. Help us to bring others under your banner, under your cause, that we may all worship you in joy before your heavenly throne. Amen.
