Yesterday, I was reading an article about a Christian evangelical movement called the New Apostolic Revelation who claim that president-elect Trump is a leader in a spiritual battle against the forces of evil in our nation. The notion that any person would have that role is obviously blasphemous, anti-biblical, and at odds with centuries of Church teaching.
But it also illustrates the point of today’s Gospel reading. I think there is this underlying ache in human nature that wants to know where everything is headed. We worry, understandably, about the future and what it holds for us. So we want to know that someone is in charge and want to know what that someone is doing to set all these things right.
And so when someone says, “Look, there he is” or “Look, here he is” we want to believe that that’s the case and have our sense of security filled. But that’s not how this life works. We don’t get to see the big picture, we only see what God needs us to see right now. And I have to believe that that’s a good thing anyway, since I don’t think any of us could survive seeing what God sees, seeing that big picture.
So we have to, I think, be scrupulously discriminating about what we hear and see, and especially about what voices we follow. We are easily led astray, but we never are if the only voice we are paying attention to is the voice of Our Lord, who, in his own words, is “The Way, the Truth, and the Life.” No one comes to the Father except through him.
So, as Jesus advises in our Gospel today, do not go off, do not run in pursuit, don’t be led astray by voices of this world leading you one way or the other. Listen to the Gospel, live the Gospel, and by that Gospel come to know the Lord so intimately that you’ll never wander in the wrong direction. That’s the only answer to the uncertainty of our time, or of any time.
Remember, the Kingdom of God is here, right now, and we need to be living in such a way that no one will see anything in us other than Jesus, Jesus, Jesus.