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Keep Alert!

Friday Focus 13 November 2026 

Luke 17:26-37

 

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Today’s gospel reading from Luke speaks about the activities of eating and drinking, taking wives and husbands, buying and selling, planting and building. These will always be some of the main activities of any human life, and of course, we could add more to that list.

Jesus reminds his listeners that in the time of Noah, people were also engaged in these activities when, suddenly, disaster struck! The flood came and all these vitally important human activities seemed less important.

On this basis, Jesus warns his contemporaries not to become so absorbed by these very human and necessary activities that when he, the Son of Man, comes at the end of time, they will be unprepared for his coming and caught off guard.

Jesus reminds us that we need to keep a proper sense of perspective. The activities of life can be so absorbing and so wonderful in many ways that they can become an end in themselves. But there is a deeper dimension to these activities which we can miss.

If we only had eyes to see and ears to hear, we would understand that the Lord, who comes at the end of time, is present to us in, and through, all of our daily activities — because the Lord is present in all things.

The Word became flesh and dwelt among us. And so, we encounter the Lord in and through the flesh of life.

If we are open to his presence at the heart of life, then his coming to us at the end of time or at the end of our own earthly time will not take us by surprise.

Norman+

 

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