How To Be Confident on the Day of Judgment

January 08, 2020

From today’s reading…

God is love, and whoever remains in love remains in God and God in him.

In this is love brought to perfection among us,

that we have confidence on the day of judgment

because as he is, so are we in this world.”

What does it take to have confidence in the Lord?

Yesterday we read in Mark 6 how Jesus fed the masses with just five loaves of bread and two fish.

Today we pick up where we left off in Mark and see the 12 Apostles frightened by the sight of Jesus walking on water.

You’d think after seeing Jesus perform the miracle onshore just a few hours ago they’d be encouraged and confident that “Jesus is THE MAN! We’re with the real OG!! Yeah, boy!”

Not only were they NOT encouraged nor was their confidence NOT strengthened, Mark 6 says…

They had not understood the incident of the loaves.

On the contrary, their hearts were hardened.

What tha? Their hearts were hardened? HARDENED?

What is up with these 12?

I remember back on Saturday, Sept 17th, 2019, it was third down and 17 for my LSU Tigers vs. the Texas Longhorns with 2:38 to go in the game. LSU was only up by six and they were on their own 39-yard line.

It was a shootout of a game and if LSU didn’t get this first down they were going to lose momentum and maybe lose the game.

But Joe Burrow, a.k.a. Jeaux Burreaux, took the shotgun snap, dropped back, avoided the rush, stepped up into the pocket, rolled a little to the left, and just as he was hit he delivered a wobbly strike to Justin Jefferson who took it to the house for the “knockout punch” in the words of the commentator.

It was at that moment I came to have complete faith in Joe Burrow, Coach O, and the LSU Tigers.

My heart was not hardened. It was softened and expanded and filled with hope and joy.

Yet the Apostles had their hearts hardened at seeing Jesus perform a much greater miracle.

Maybe it was because they had not yet received the Holy Spirit. (That was a year or two away.) 

Maybe it was because they just weren’t well-educated men.

Maybe it was because they knew the stories of the miracles Moses and Elijah had performed in feeding the masses and they were merely good, holy men, not the Messiah.

Fortunately for us all, Jesus was and remains patient and loving. 

He did what He had to do to get the point across that He is the Way, the Truth, and the Life.

So be like the Apostles after Pentecost. Be like John in today’s first reading. Move forward in confidence as you…

Stay the course.Keep the faith.Endure.