Beloved,
today I want to speak to you about something both simple and astonishing:
the freedom Jesus gives us when we stop demanding that this earthly life carry a meaning it was never designed to hold.
We human beings are obsessed with the question:
“What is the meaning of life?”
But perhaps the very asking of it reveals that we already feel the answer slipping:
there is none—not here, not in this world of dust and cycles.
Everything in this world circles:
electrons around nuclei, planets around suns, seasons in endless rotation, empires rising and falling only to rise and fall again. Human knowledge accumulates and then dissolves into forgetfulness. Strength becomes frailty. Growth becomes decay.
We imagine ourselves climbing some spiritual ladder, improving, developing, evolving—but the disciples themselves prove otherwise. Those who walked with Jesus for years fled in fear at the cross. Their time with Him did not accumulate into wisdom; wisdom came only later by the Spirit from above.
This world offers no lasting growth, no permanent becoming, no stable meaning.
And Jesus, who speaks only of real things, never once tells us to seek “the meaning of life.” He tells us instead:
“Do not worry.”
“Lose your life to find it.”
“Let the dead bury their own dead.”
“Life is more than food and the body more than clothing.”
He is telling us not that life is trivial—
but that life is temporary, and therefore light.
A Story of Forgetting
Imagine a magnificent kingdom where the children of the King live in perfect peace, lacking nothing, held in unending love. And within that kingdom stands a house of marvels—a temporary world of toil and hunger and laughter and storms, a place built so that those children might taste experiences unknown in the halls of abundance.
And at first they rejoice.
They marvel at sweat.
They delight in sharing breadcrumbs.
They thrill at the bite of the wind.
They celebrate each moment because they know:
this is temporary.
This is not home.
But then, like so many of us, they forget.
The song of the King grows faint.
The memory of abundance dim.
And they begin to toil as though toil is all there is.
They begin to curse themselves, curse the world, curse God for their suffering.
They begin to force others to labor, placing themselves upon their backs.
They take the game too seriously.
They forget it is a game.
Is this not the human condition?
We cling to meaning as if meaning were a lifeboat.
We cling to success as if success could be carried into eternity.
We cling to our anxieties, our merits, our imagined importance.
We cling so tightly that our hands bleed—
though the thing we hold is only sand.
The Pharisees Among Us
And some, remembering dimly that another world exists, fall into a deeper trap. They wait for the messenger of the King, but they imagine that the next world is merely this world, perfected:
- a place where the diligent sit closest to God,
- where the successful are honored,
- where the righteous gain rank,
- where superiority persists forever.
They want Heaven—
but only if Heaven preserves their earthly hierarchy.
Such people existed in Jesus’ day.
We call them Pharisees.
But they exist today in many forms—even among Christians:
- those who long for a Hell full of enemies,
- those who want exclusivity more than salvation,
- those who expect reward proportional to merit,
- those who crave exceptionality more than grace.
And so, when the messenger comes—
when Jesus arrives, proclaiming a Kingdom of abundance where all sit equally at the table—
they reject Him.
For He threatens not their sin—
but their superiority.
A Kingdom of Abundance
But hear the truth Jesus spoke and still speaks:
In the Father’s Kingdom no one loses by another’s gain.
No one is displaced by another’s nearness to the King.
No one’s joy detracts from yours.
Honor is infinite.
Love is infinite.
Presence is infinite.
There is no scarcity in Heaven.
On earth we sit around narrow tables with limited seats;
in Heaven, every person may sit beside Jesus.
And so the messenger cries out:
“Children of the King!
Why do you toil as though you were slaves?
Why do you crush yourselves and one another
under burdens the Father never placed upon you?
Wake up!
This is not your true world.
This is but a moment, a flicker before the dawn!”
This is the Gospel.
Not “Try harder.”
Not “Earn your place.”
Not “Build your meaning.”
But:
Wake up.
Remember who you are.
Celebrate this fleeting life while you have it.
For your true life is secured in the Father’s Kingdom.
Celebrate Life — Not Because It Is Meaningful, but Because It Is Free
In a world obsessed with meaning, Jesus calls us to something better:
celebration.
Not celebration born of luxury,
but celebration born of remembering that none of this defines us.
Why did Jesus feast at Matthew’s table?
Why did He praise the woman who poured out costly perfume?
Why did He sleep peacefully in the storm?
Because He lived as one who remembered His Father’s house.
He lived lightly.
He lived freely.
He lived joyfully
in a world others carried like a stone.
If earthly life has no ultimate meaning, then it also has:
- no ultimate failure,
- no ultimate shame,
- no ultimate loss,
- no ultimate despair.
And therefore:
we are free to rejoice.
Free to forgive.
Free to love.
Free to rest.
Free to give.
Free to experience.
Not because these moments accumulate into merit,
but because they are moments—
bright sparks before eternity.
The Call to Remember
Beloved, hear the call of the messenger today:
“Do not overstay in the world of shadows.
Do not take it more seriously than it deserves.
Do not cling to the dust as though it were gold.”
You belong to another Kingdom.
A Kingdom where everything is abundance.
A Kingdom where your joy is safe forever.
A Kingdom where the Father waits with open arms.
So live this temporary life not in dread,
not in self-importance,
not in anxious meaning-seeking,
but in celebration.
Work when work is before you,
weep when sorrow comes,
laugh when joy appears,
and cherish each fleeting breath—
not because it will last,
but because it will not.
For when this world passes,
you will awaken in the home you never lost,
the home you only forgot.
He who has ears, let him hear.
The shadow is fading.
The dawn is near.
Remember your home—and live freely.
Amen.