Til the End of Our Days

Archeology teaches us that things last and that all things come to an end. Archeologists painstakingly sift through sand and earth to tease out artifacts, buildings and sometimes preserved bodies that give us insight into the past. The Wailing Wall is all that is left of the temple in Jerusalem, of which this Sunday’s Gospel speaks; stone upon stone is barely left, but the way of living that Jesus taught is still lived and witnessed -preserved in the faithful lives of his disciples. The gospel predicts end times, our challenge is to live faithfully now.

How reassuring it is to have Jesus tell us that “not a hair on our head will be destroyed” if we are faithful to discipleship. The source of our confidence and trust that we can live in the way Jesus asks is Jesus himself. By his teaching and by the example of his way of living, Jesus gives us the wisdom we need to face any and all adversity.

The secure life Jesus is talking about doesn’t mean that everything in our lives is going to be easy or the way we want it. We will, in fact, face many “deaths” as Jesus did- we will be misunderstood, criticized, taken for granted, taken advantage of, sometimes even face physical death in our pursuit of Jesus’ way of living. No matter what “deaths” we face, our lives are secure in Jesus.