Eat, Drink, and Be Merry!
Eat, Drink and Be Merry!
It is often said that everything can change in a New York minute. You can be driving to work one morning safely moving along in traffic when without warning you are blindsided by another vehicle whose driver ran a red light. Instead of being at your desk a half hour later, you are in an ambulance headed to the hospital, your day, your week, your month or even your year totally disrupted and fraught with unanticipated difficulties and expenses. Planning for the future seems ridiculous in the face of such overwhelming odds that everything we count on can change so drastically and so rapidly. It seems the epitome of arrogance to set a wedding date, schedule a colonoscopy or buy groceries for the week, when during the minute it took for you to read this text, 105 people died.
If we have no more than human hope of life that ends with physical death, what do we gain by living wisely according to our designs? If there is no assurance that our strategy will succeed, no guarantee of a tomorrow, no hope of a life to live after this one, then why not just party on? In Paul’s first letter to the church in Corinth, he uses an example of modern life in Ephesus to highlight how the ‘hopeless’ live and how the ‘hopeful’ have cause to continue to live judiciously. It was a popular entertainment for gladiators to fight wild animals in Ephesus. The odds of survival were not good, and these fighters lived very undisciplined lives – as if this day was their last – and participated in whatever activity would satisfy their feelings. Paul was shocked to discover that the Corinthians were engaging in the same kind of lifestyle because they were ‘free’ men. His entire argument begins and ends with chapter 15 verse 32 “IF THE DEAD ARE NOT RAISED, ‘Let us eat and drink, for tomorrow we die.’” It is folly to think that our behavior as Christians has no effect on how unbelievers view this guy Jesus we profess to disciple. If the world sees no difference between us; no discernible change in our lives; no evidence of Christ’s influence on us, we have no believable testimony. And our own, personal testimony is all the evidence we possess to share with someone about the Savior. So how do we plan? By living today as if we are going to be with Jesus tomorrow and desire as many people who DON’T have that assurance to go with us. Simple. Be blessed.
