How Shall We Live?

How Shall We Live?

Revelation 22:6-21

            I teach a college course in comparative religion.  The students look at many of the world’s faiths from a more or less objective point of view.  Each chapter of the textbook covers one religion and is divided into three major sections:  the teachings of that religion; its history; and how one follows that religion as a way of life.  At the end of each chapter three questions are asked and answered.  From the perspective of that religion:

1.      What is ultimate reality?

2.      How should we live in this world?

3.      What is our ultimate purpose?

I find it interesting that the way one lives the religion is covered in the main body of the chapter and again at the end.  While I enjoy teaching each section of each chapter, I think I’m the most interested in looking at the religion as a way of life.  Except for a few major events I don’t find the history of a religion very exciting.  The teachings are always interesting to dissect.  My students are often amazed at the similarities in teachings among religions.  Even in those that seem the most unique there always seems to be something that connects them to other faiths.

I believe all of us in the class understand the importance of the section on the way of life.  As I point out frequently, there is a wide range of practice in any religion, all the way from those for whom their faith is their complete way of life to those who observe the tenets only when convenient or necessary.  Within this wide range we find what the religion says ought to be the way a practitioner of that faith should live on a daily basis.

One of my goals in this course is to have each student understand his/her religion more completely.  Since most (if not all) of my students profess some form of Christianity, I tend to make that faith the major point of comparison.  We first ask:  How do the other religions of the world indicate that one should live?  Then:  Is there anything we can take from another religion that would increase/enhance/deepen our own faith?  Frequently students are interested in the connections.  They often begin to question what they have grown up believing, and as a result of that questioning finish the semester with a deeper and more vibrant faith than they had at the beginning.

Martin Luther has given us some of the best advice as to how we should live as Christians in this world.  He said we should live as though Jesus was born yesterday, risen today, and is coming back tomorrow.  We should celebrate each day as both Christmas and Easter—the joy of God come to earth to be with humanity and show us how to live, and the joy of a risen Savior who breaks down all boundaries between people, and between people and God. 

But there’s more—much more!  Joy is wonderful but not enough.  We must also live as though Jesus is returning now, not at some possible time in some far-off future.  Jesus made this evident in the parables he told.  Nowhere are his words on this matter more clear than in the final chapter of Revelation.

I remember reading somewhere that a good dramatist tells you anything important three times—to be sure you get it.  In the final sixteen verses of the New Testament Jesus tells us three times that he is coming soon.  In vv. 7 and 12 he says “behold I am coming soon.”  In v. 20 he says, “Surely I am coming soon.”  If we don’t get it by then, we’re not listening.

How would it impact your life if you lived as if Jesus would return tomorrow? 

Start living that way now. 

It might happen.