EPHEMERAL
When we were children, we would spend our Saturday mornings cruising down to the Corner Store on our banana bikes. With our 10 cents in our frayed jeans, we would gaze longingly at the rows and jars of assorted colors at the candy counter and thoughtfully select our jaw breakers, sugar straws and the oh so delicious mint green Mo Jo’s.
Recently, friends and I journeyed to a small town corner store in search of the famous Mo Jo candy, but to our dismay, it was now No Jo. The company simply didn’t produce this item anymore. Not only are sugar treats, cereals and certain food items unavailable, but machines, certain technologies and automobiles, simply not made anymore. They are short-lived or ephemeral.
When you take the number of days in a year and multiply that by your age, you will be astonished to discover that the number is very low in terms of eternity. A twenty-year old has only lived 7,300 days. A thirty-five year old merely 12.775 days and even a seventy-five year old has only breathed 27,375 days. Merely a miniscual number in terms of millions and bilions.
And yet, eternity has no number value - it is forever. Then why do we spend our lives worrying, scurrying and burying ourselves with life, consuming and a million different tasks that we deem important now? Our focus should be where our souls will reside.
There was a rich man who was dressed in purple and fine linen and lived in luxury every day. At his gate was laid a beggar named Lazarus, covered with sores and longing to eat what fell from the rich man’s table. Even the dogs came and licked his sores.
“The time came when the beggar died and the angels carried him to Abraham’s side. The rich man also died and was buried. In Hades, where he was in torment, he looked up and saw Abraham far away, with Lazarus by his side. So he called to him, ‘Father Abraham, have pity on me and send Lazarus to dip the tip of his finger in water and cool my tongue, because I am in agony in this fire.’
“But Abraham replied, ‘Son, remember that in your lifetime you received your good things, while Lazarus received bad things, but now he is comforted here and you are in agony. And besides all this, between us and you a great chasm has been set in place, so that those who want to go from here to you cannot, nor can anyone cross over from there to us.’
“He answered, ‘Then I beg you, father, send Lazarus to my family, for I have five brothers. Let him warn them, so that they will not also come to this place of torment.’
“Abraham replied, ‘They have Moses and the Prophets; let them listen to them.’
“‘No, father Abraham,’ he said, ‘but if someone from the dead goes to them, they will repent.’
“He said to him, ‘If they do not listen to Moses and the Prophets, they will not be convinced even if someone rises from the dead.’”
Luke 16: 19-31