Waiting for the Lord in Courage

In today’s first reading, 1 Thes 5: 1-6, 9-11, St. Paul reminds us that “the Lord will come like a thief at night.”  However, he says,  we are “not of the night or of darkness.” Being a child “of the light” and a child  “of the day,” we are capable of being “alert and sober,” at the Lord’s coming.  In fact,  this particular day will be a day of great rejoicing because “God did not destine us for wrath, but to gain salvation through our Lord Jesus Christ, who died for us, so that whether we are awake or asleep we may live together with him.”

What awesome promises and capabilities.  By virtue of our redemption in Christ Jesus, we have nothing to fear.  Our destination is God’s welcoming invitation to enter life eternal, where there are no more tears, no more suffering, no more death, no more violence, no more sin.  Pure light and holiness,  total transformation into Christ awaits us. 

With the writer of today’s responsorial psalm, we pray: “I believe that I shall see the good things of the Lord in the land of the living,” and I also “wait for the Lord with courage; [am] stouthearted in my “wait for the Lord.”

What about you?