Jesus - The Best Investment

Thanks to advances in medicine and technology, people are living to a much older age. Whereas life expectancy for those alive during the 1960’s was about seventy years, people living today can expect to live well into their eighties and even into their nineties.

While the prospect of enjoying a longer life is certainly a blessing, it also presents many challenges to us as individuals and as a society.

When faced with many years of retirement, most people wonder whether they have saved enough money to last them all that time. Though we would all like to spend our last dollar with our last breath, none of us can know how long our lives will be. How will we know whether we have put enough aside and when we can stop working?

And, how should we allocate the money we are able to save? What percentage of it should be in cash and how much should remain invested in bonds? What will happen to our savings if interest rates go down or if the stock market takes a dive? What effect will taxes and inflation have on our nest egg?

Also, what will happen to us if we get sick and need extensive hospital care? Who will take care of us when we are no longer able to take care of ourselves? And, who will pay for it all?

None of us has a crystal ball to see into the future. Not knowing what will happen makes planning that much more difficult.

Though we have been talking about planning for retirement, our readings today point us to an even more urgent reality awaiting us in the future - the coming of the Lord. None of us knows when Jesus will come again in glory. However, one thing is for sure, it will change whatever plans we have for the future. Jesus makes it clear to us that the future is in God’s hands. However, like the wise virgins in the parable, we have to be prepared to wait a long time and have to be vigilant so that we can enter into the heavenly banquet when He does arrive.

Interestingly, many of the same obstacles that keep us from planning well for retirement can also keep us from planning well to meet the Lord.

The first obstacle is denial. Some people just do not want to think about having to stand face to face before Jesus to be judged by Him. The thought of it is just too alarming to consider. Also, many people wrongly believe that Jesus will not judge us but will simply welcome us into heaven no matter what type of life we have lived.

Of course, such an illusion is contrary to what Jesus Himself taught. In fact, every Sunday we profess in the creed that “He will come again in glory to judge the living and the dead.” And that judgment will be no simple pat on the back. If we have failed to show love to our neighbor, then we can expect to hear the fearful words that Jesus speaks in the Parable of the Sheep and the Goats: “Depart from me, you accursed, into the eternal fire prepared for the devil and his angels.”

If we are under the illusion that Jesus will not judge us, we had better wake up. If we are going to stand before Him on that day, we have to prepare by repenting of our sins today. We have to go to confession regularly - at least once a month - to unburden ourselves of the guilt we have committed and to find the strength to resist temptation in the future. And we have to show love to our neighbors by practicing works of mercy. If we do all this with love and faith, then we will be prepared to meet Him when He comes.

Another obstacle to preparing ourselves to meet the Lord is complacency. We think we have plenty of time to change our lives and are in no hurry. Whereas the virgins in Jesus’ parable thought the bridegroom would be coming sooner than expected, we are not expecting Jesus to come anytime soon. Therefore, we think we can put off conforming our minds and hearts to His word.

If we are under the illusion that we have plenty of time, we had better wake up. Even if the end of the world is still a long ways off, we do not know how close we are to our own death. It is likely that we have far less time than we think. We have to be prepared today to meet the Lord because we do not know when we will draw our last breath.

Finally, another obstacle that keeps us from being prepared to meet the Lord is investing our time and energy in the wrong things. Just as people can jeopardize their retirement by putting their money in the wrong investments, so we can jeopardize our salvation by investing ourselves in the wrong pursuits. If we have spent our lives seeking pleasure, power over others, status and money, then we will not be prepared to meet Jesus. Who of us can impress the Lord of all creation with our fancy titles or accomplishments? What Jesus will be looking for from us instead  is an accounting of how we loved our neighbor. If we gave our time and talents to feeding the hungry, praying for sinners, advocating for the powerless and being patient with those who irritate us, we can be sure that our investment will pay off dividends good for eternal life.

All of us will one day stand before the Lord to give an account of the good and the evil that we have done. None of us has a crystal ball to tell us how much time we have left. Therefore, if we are going to be prepared to meet Him, we have to shake off the denial and complacency that fool us into thinking that we do not have to deal with it. If we live each day conscious of the account that we will have to give to Jesus, then we do not have to worry about facing Him after death. After all, He died so that we might have eternal life. At the same time, however, He is a just judge.

Let today be the day when we earnestly seek Him so that we will not be a stranger to Him when we meet Him face to face.