Malachi 3:19-20/ 2 Thessalonians 3:7-12/ Luke 21:5-19
Recently a company announced plans to launch its website in Singapore in 2014.
Its website membership has over 21 million members from over 30 countries (that’s quite impressive).
Essentially, it is an online dating service and a social networking service, but that is not all.
It is marketed, and targeted, to people who are already in a relationship; or putting it plainly, people who are already married.
There is no need to guess what it is all about, especially when the company’s slogan is this: Life is short. Have an affair.
However, the authorities have announced that it will not allow the company to operate in Singapore as it promotes adultery and disregards family values.
Hence, the company’s website is also blocked from any access.
Thanks be to God that the website was not allowed to infiltrate into our country and so we are safe, at least for now.
But its waves have already flooded our minds and drowned our innocence of thought.
Because its slogan has made our minds wander around a bit.
“Life is short. Have an affair!” And who doesn’t know that life is short?! If you ever live to be a 100, you can be sure that there will not much competition and there will be no peer pressure.
But because life is so short, there will be temptation to give in to peer pleasure.
Peer pleasure as in we see our friends having fun with life and enjoying the pleasures of life as it there is no tomorrow.
And why not! Even Jesus said in the gospel that not one stone will be left on another. Everything will be destroyed!
There will be wars and revolutions, great earthquakes and plagues and famines.
We have seen all that happen in our time. And Jesus continues by saying that all that must happen, but the end is not so soon.
And we may think: You mean there is more to come? You mean the worse is not over yet?
If that is the case, then indeed, life is short, so why care?
As that slogan says: Life is short. Have an affair.
And the ridiculous litany can continue. Life is short, so just don’t care! Pollute the air! Go ahead and swear! Do what others don’t dare! No need to be fair or square! Cheat and be a millionaire!
These may sound ridiculous but the tragedies of life can turn the mind into madness.
In the gospel, Jesus predicted the destruction of Jerusalem and the famous temple and that happened in 70AD.
During the long siege, about a million people were killed or died of starvation.
Besides the carnage that was carried out when the city was conquered, the survivors were forced to look at the Temple being demolished and reduced to rubble.
A disaster and destruction of such a magnitude was enough to make the survivors go mad.
And as in some cases that we heard of, a person’s hair can turn white overnight.
In the gospel, Jesus painted for us a worst case scenario of disaster, destruction, persecution and betrayal.
It may not make our hair turn white overnight but it will make our hair stand.
Yet, in this worst case scenario, Jesus is also telling us to look at it with the eyes of faith.
Yes, faith will enable us to look at this terrible scenario and see it as an opportunity to bear witness.
As we know, the Philippines has suffered a tragedy and a catastrophe.
First there was a great earthquake resulting in the loss of lives, destruction of homes and churches that are centuries old.
Then came a super typhoon that caused more loss of lives and more destruction and disaster.
Yet, it is in this face of tragedy that we are presented with an opportunity.
It is an opportunity to bear witness to our faith in the sense that tragedy must not have the last say.
God will have the final say but He needs our faith to bear witness to that.
With faith in God we must support our brothers and sisters in the Philippines.
Besides material help, we must also give them spiritual help so that those who are suffering from the tragedy will not lose their minds and lose their faith.
Tragedies like these make us realize that life is short.
But just because life is short we must not and cannot subscribe to that slogan: Life is short. Have an affair.
Rather with faith, we will say: Life is short. Handle with prayer.
With faith in God and with enduring prayer, worst case scenarios will turn into blessed-case scenarios.