Title: Time, Eternity, Love
As a teenager, time was tiring, and the new year seemed to come too slowly.
In my 20s, the year-end and New Year holidays were a romantic opportunity that made my heart race.
In my 30s and 40s, it was time to entertain my children and spend time with my family. There was also the joy of playing the role of Santa Claus.
In your 50s, this period gets a bit scary.
In my 60s, I think about the rest of my life with fear and reflect on the past.
Regardless of how old you are, the end of the year is a valuable opportunity for self-reflection for those who are serious about living their lives today and tomorrow. You will think about important values such as , , and . On the last Sunday of the Year of the Sick, using the words of Ecclesiastes as a mirror, I think it would be meaningful to reflect on the meaning of time, eternity, and love. This is because human beings long for eternity even though they live in time, and through the practice of love in a short life, they can experience the fragments of eternity in their body.
The author of Ecclesiastes was a person who enjoyed all the power, wealth, and fame that human beings desire, but he confesses in his life experience, realizing the futility and meaninglessness of human efforts. While singing about life's passing away like wind and fog, we are trying to figure out what God's will is in time. In today's text, let's listen to some reflection topics.
First, God made everything beautiful at the right time.
Second, He gave people a heart to long for eternity. However, man cannot measure the beginning and end of God's work.
Third, human beings live a worthwhile life when they live a life that rejoices in time and does good.
Let us graciously reflect on the above three themes in our lives today.
First theme: God made everything beautiful in its time.
Life is not all about joy or sorrow. As Ecclesiastes testifies, there is a time to be born and a time to die. There is a time to sow and a time to reap. There is a time to find and a time to lose. There is a time to cry and a time to laugh. The problem is that each time, we must have an attitude of accepting things as beautiful according to God's will. We need to recognize that we are happy when we plant, we are happy when we harvest, that we are beautiful when we keep and beautiful when we let go. If life is such a sum total of different things and created by God, then we should be grateful and rejoice in whatever situation we are in. In other words, to cry when we cry and laugh when we laugh, to live a human life when we fight, to fight worthwhile when to fight, and to live like a human being because we work with value when we achieve peace. This is probably the will of God's creation.
So, what is not beautiful? It will be a life of mourning when you are happy, loving when you need to hate, and breaking down when you need to build. As we look back on the past year, we should quietly reflect on whether we were not sad when we had to dance and quiet when we had to shout. Does that mean you have to be self-sufficient in certain time situations? Shouldn't we jump over the situation and miss eternity?
Second Theme: Longing for Eternity in Time.
Only humans are persistent in satisfying the desire to transcend time and space. With the development of science and technology, humans have conquered space to some extent. Now, apart from that vast universe, the frontier is almost gone. I was able to move freely in a wide space. In particular, thanks to the information and communication revolution, humans have been able to transcend the limitations of space to carry out work. I have been able to enjoy benefits such as home education, home shopping, and home medical treatment. Humans who have conquered space in this way have now begun to conquer time. But time conquest cannot be achieved with modern science. Will humans be able to expand the frontier of time and finally reach eternal life? Although all religions and people of all ages tried to satisfy their desire for eternal life, did it really work? In movies, you can go back and forth between the present, the future and the past (the movie Back to the Future), but in reality it's still impossible. Traveling in a time machine is still just a dream.
After all, it is also a grace that we cannot see through the entire will of God. If we can have God's bright eyes and see everything transparently, our life will be a series of suffering. Think of the pain of seeing things you shouldn't see. If you can see all the germs and viruses that swarm in the side dishes, can you eat them? We should realize and be grateful that our inability to comprehend God's will is a blessing, just as it is grace that our eyes are moderately dark.
So does the Bible only teach that we cannot understand all of God's will? Even though we cannot know the full picture of God's work, wouldn't we be able to understand the important meaning of God's work?
The third theme: Live in love in time.
We know that God is love. In other words, we can measure the will of God who has given us a longing for eternity. And you have to understand its meaning. It means that we should live a life of joy and good deeds, and that we should love our neighbors as God loves us. It is here that we need to look back at Jesus who came in love and listen anew to His teachings.
Jesus is the bridge between time and eternity. In other words, in order for time to lead to eternity, we must practice love (Jesus). Only a life of love can connect time into eternity. This is the difference from King Jinsi's desire for eternal life, who is looking for 訝띹곮뜆.
One day, a scribe challenged Jesus and asked him what the way to eternal life was. Jesus' answer to this very question was the life of a good Samaritan who showed love. Unlike the religious leader, the Samaritan showed love in his unique temporal context (while traveling). He is the one who loved when he should have loved. But the priest and the Levite were cowardly indifferent when they had to love. The Sangnom Samaritans attained eternal life, and the religious leaders did not. Samaritan Sangnom crossed over to eternal life through the bridge of love. This is different from the greed for eternal life, the greed to ride a time machine, and the greed for human beings to gain unconditional happiness.
My dear sisters and brothers! This year, we should do a quiet self-examination before this year is over, whether we have not dishonored God in God?셲 name, whether we have hated God when we love in Jesus??name, and whether we have insulted Jesus by loving when we should have hated Him. .
In the coming year, like the Good Samaritan, we will have to walk the bridge to eternal life with Jesus, longing for eternity by doing good deeds to others. Let's not forget that longing for eternity is loving our neighbor in time, and it is our life to love our neighbor.
In the new year, let's remember God who made everything beautifully and live a life of crying together when we cry and rejoicing together when we rejoice. But let's not be content with a specific time, but let's go beyond time and long for eternity. However, let us realize that longing for eternity does not mean the desire for eternal life to live alone forever, the endless selfishness to find the eternal candle. Rather, it means a life of loving our neighbor as we love God within a certain limited time. Only this kind of love becomes a bridge that connects time into eternity. That bridge is Jesus Christ.
In the coming new year, let's live with Jesus and see the beauty of God every time, but let's live a life that loves our neighbors more with longing for eternity. We must not forget in the new year that it is the gateway to eternity.