Today is the first day of advent. Admittedly, the Christian calendar has not been a part of my spiritual rhythm. Although, In recent years, my journey has led me to become more aware and responsive to the Christian calendar. In my reading this morning, I came across the following excerpt written by Michael Spencer that gave me pause on this first day of advent.
We all live the days before. We are living them now.
There was a day before 9-11.
There was a day before your child told you she was pregnant.
There was a day before your wife said she’d had enough.
There was a day before your employer said “lay offs.”
We are living our days before. We are living them now.
Some of us are doing, for the last time, what we think we will be doing twenty years from now.
Some of us are on the verge of a much shorter life, or a very different life, or a life turned upside down.
Some of us are preaching our last sermon, making love for the last time, saying “I love you” to our children for the last time in our own home. Some of us are spending our last day without the knowledge of eternal judgment and the reality of God. We are promising tomorrow will be different and tomorrow is not going to give us the chance, because God has a different tomorrow entirely on our schedule. We just don’t know it today.
Live each day as the day that all of the gospel is true. Live this day and be glad in it. Live this day as the day of laying down sin and taking up the glad and good forgiveness of Jesus. Live this day determined to be useful and joyful in Jesus. Live this day in a way that, should all things change tomorrow, you will know that the Lord is your God and this is the day to be satisfied in him.
He didn’t know it at the time, but when Michael Spencer wrote those words, he had cancer. Within five months, he died. We never know the time or day, either of Jesus’ return or of the day when our lives will be forever changed.