The Revised Common Lectionary (RCL) Daily Reading for the
day is Matthew 24:23-35, which reads in part:
Then if anyone says to you, “Look!
Here is the Messiah!” or “There he is!”—do not believe it. For false messiahs
and false prophets will appear and produce great signs and omens, to lead
astray, if possible, even the elect. Take note, I have told you beforehand. So,
if they say to you, “Look! He is in the wilderness”, do not go out. If they
say, “Look! He is in the inner rooms”, do not believe it. For as the lightning
comes from the east and flashes as far as the west, so will be the coming of
the Son of Man. Wherever the corpse is, there the vultures will gather.
‘Immediately after the suffering of those days
the sun will be darkened,
and the moon will not give its light;
the stars will fall from heaven,
and the powers of heaven will be shaken.
Then the sign of the Son of Man will
appear in heaven, and then all the tribes of the earth will mourn, and they
will see “the Son of Man coming on the clouds of heaven” with power and great
glory. And he will send out his angels with a loud trumpet call, and they will
gather his elect from the four winds, from one end of heaven to the other.
The reading is a reminder first, that no matter what the
season, no matter what the observance, life goes on. There are tasks to be done and responsibilities
to be fulfilled and responsibilities to be discharged. These do not go away merely because we are
now well into December.
It is also an alert that the hope of Advent – the coming of Christ
into the world – has its joys but also its caution. Impostors and deceivers are ever a menace. Throughout Christian history there have been “false
messiahs,” those who claimed to be anointed of god and who caused significant
numbers of people to stray. Today we
would call some of them cultists, and we don’t have to look back very to see
what tragedy such figures can cause.
Be faithful. Be
vigilant. Trust God.
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