Text: Luke 17:26-37
I can't imagine a more graphic way for Jesus to say that his return will not be announced beforehand than what is recorded in today's text. Everything will be going on as usual--doing business, planning weddings, playing games, teaching all manner of lessons. Then he'll suddenly appear and all of it will change; some will be here no more. What life will be like for those remaining is not said.
The interest here is not in collating other biblical texts to try to at least partially answer those open questions. Our interest is rather in the text as Luke gave it to us; and those questions were apparently not why he recorded these words. Rather, they are connected with the call to seek the kingdom in the preceding paragraph. The seeking of the kingdom is done in the ordinary, in the commercial, in the familial and familiar things of life--but with an eye not permanently fixed thereon. Here lies the greatest challenge of Christian, kingdom living: being in the world but not of the world. Sharing in its activities, but with the redemption of its participants in mind.
Seek first the kingdom. Seek God's will and righteousness in all dealings in the world, in all human relationships. If we do not, they will become ends in themselves and slowly distance us from the Giver of these good things, so that when is revealed--either at the end of the world or the end of our own days--we will be drawn to look back to embrace the temporal and lose the eternal. Alas, our souls will have in that case withered, suiting them not for the return of the savior but for the consumption of vultures.
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