<\/p>\n
So, just what is \u201cA little while\u201d to Jesus?\u00a0 His disciples thought that Jesus would return in their lifetime.\u00a0 Even Peter and Paul thought that was the case, as their early letters indicated.\u00a0 It is 2000 years later, and the \u201clittle while\u201d has not yet come to be.\u00a0 We are all still waiting for the second coming of Jesus.\u00a0 But one thing is for sure.\u00a0 The little while that Jesus refers to is a lot shorter than eternity.<\/p>\n
Ah, yes- eternity- just how long is that.\u00a0 60 seconds of a baby screaming seems like an eternity, doesn\u2019t it? \u00a0\u00a0And sometimes it seems like it takes an eternity for water to boil; on the other hand, when you are young, it seems like an eternity before you are old enough to drive.\u00a0 For the person who lives 100 years- well 100 years seems like an eternity as you live it.\u00a0 And finally, according to Wikipedia, the age of the universe is 13.798 \u00b1 0.037 billion<\/a> years, to be precise.\u00a0 That is a long, long, time- longer than we can ever imagine.\u00a0 And so, whenever someone talks to us about life beyond life in this world, we become so fixated on the reality of our known world, and how long it has existed that we find it hard to focus on what is beyond this world.<\/p>\n That\u2019s what happened in the first reading.\u00a0 The Jews waited several thousand years for the Messiah.\u00a0 He came; and they didn\u2019t recognize him.\u00a0 They were focused on this world, and how to live in it not on eternity, and life in eternity.<\/p>\n But as long in time as some of these worldly things seem or are, they are like the bat of an eye compared to eternity.\u00a0 And that is Jesus point.\u00a0 You see, you and I are going to have to live through the baby\u2019s cry, the water boiling, being able to drive, and for some, even a 100 year life span.\u00a0 And when we do, they all will seem insignificant in time once we are beyond them, as they truly are insignificant in time.\u00a0 But in reality, we are going to live beyond the life of the universe, because we are all going to live an eternity- which is forever.\u00a0 It is our choice how we choose to live out the eternity, which will, of course, dwarf all these time comparisons.\u00a0 No matter how long it seems to take to live out our lives living them with faith that Jesus promise of salvation and everlasting life are real, and no matter how hard it seems to follow the Gospel, along with the weeping that Jesus predicts, it all lasts for just a little while compared to eternity.<\/p>\n As things happen to us, they may seem like they take an eternity- like the baby crying.\u00a0 But they don\u2019t.\u00a0 We will get beyond them with faith and hope and love. \u00a0So, let us focus on what we need to do to experience the joy of eternity, rather than the trials we experience in \u201cthe little while\u201d of our lives.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":" Thursday of the Sixth Week of Easter Acts 18: 1-8; John 16: 16-21 Dc. Larry Brockman So, just what is \u201cA little while\u201d to Jesus?\u00a0 His disciples thought that Jesus would return in their lifetime.\u00a0 Even Peter and Paul thought that was the case, as their early letters indicated.\u00a0 It is 2000 years later, […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":[],"categories":[5],"tags":[223,224],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"http:\/\/www.deaconlarry.org\/blog\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/371"}],"collection":[{"href":"http:\/\/www.deaconlarry.org\/blog\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"http:\/\/www.deaconlarry.org\/blog\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/www.deaconlarry.org\/blog\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/www.deaconlarry.org\/blog\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=371"}],"version-history":[{"count":1,"href":"http:\/\/www.deaconlarry.org\/blog\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/371\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":372,"href":"http:\/\/www.deaconlarry.org\/blog\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/371\/revisions\/372"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"http:\/\/www.deaconlarry.org\/blog\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=371"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/www.deaconlarry.org\/blog\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=371"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/www.deaconlarry.org\/blog\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=371"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}