Prelude to the Second Coming, Love

Armodoxy for Today: Prelude to Second Coming, Love

This final week of the Lenten Season is dedicated to the Second Coming of Christ. As I’ve shared over the last couple of days, the Church talks about preparedness for the Second Coming in terms of living a life based on Christ’s first coming, namely, living in harmony with God and your fellow man. We read that the leaders of the religious community tried to trick Jesus by asking which is the greatest commandment, thinking that he might choose the Do not murder, or perhaps, Do not make false oaths and in return they would argue the merits of another commandment. But Jesus gives them an answer that cannot be disputed: Love God and love neighbor and he seals this commandment by saying, “On these two commandments depend all the law and the prophets.”

Today we meditate on the simplicity of Christ’s call to love God and our neighbor. If you love God you cannot murder, you cannot lie, you honor your parents, you cannot be apathetic about life. Every commandment hinge on these two essentials.

We hear the reports from war daily. There is a vocabular of war with phrases such as targeting innocent people, friendly fire and war-crimes, in other words, there are certain crimes inside of war confrontations that are criminal, as if war itself is not a crime?  Think of it for a moment, if you love God how can you possibly drop a bomb on another human being? Whether military or the civilian target, aren’t they all innocent? Aren’t they all children of God?

The 17^th century French archbishop François Fénelon expressed it eloquently: All wars are civil wars because all men are brothers… Each one owes infinitely more to the human race than to the particular country in which he was born.”

Christ’s path is the higher road to take. In the context of the Second Coming, if fear of a final judgment stops people from hurting and killing one another, then let us promote that day. But let us promote it with the terms by which Jesus promoted it: Love God and love your neighbor! Everything is built on these two commandments. Love is an action that must be demonstrated not with words but with deeds.

Today I leave you to meditate this simple parable offered to us by our Lord Jesus Christ.

A man had two sons; and he went to the first and said, ‘Son, go and work in the vineyard today.’  And he answered, ‘I will not’; but afterward he repented and went.  And he went to the second and said the same; and he answered, ‘I go, sir,’ but did not go. Which of the two did the will of his father?” They said, “The first.” Jesus said to them, “Truly, I say to you, the tax collectors and the harlots go into the kingdom of God before you. For John came to you in the way of righteousness, and you did not believe him, but the tax collectors and the harlots believed him; and even when you saw it, you did not afterward repent and believe him. (Matthew 21)