The Next Day

Introduction

Christmas has come and gone. What is the day after Christmas like for you? Many go back to work. How many of you have felt a little “down” from the Christmas cheer? Now we move rapidly to the final day of 2018 and prepare for “auld lang syne.” We have decorations to take down and put away for next year. Exchanges need to be made perhaps. If you used a charge card during this holiday season, bills must now be paid. We have to learn to start saying and writing 2019. The day after Christmas is not usually as much fun as the anticipation of Christmas itself.

Our emphasis this month has been on mission. We carry that theme today with a message designed to help us focus that our mission on this earth leads us to a final destination. We want to help others come to know Jesus because we love him. And because we love him, we know that our mission has an ultimate end—to be with Father. He has promised such an ending and we celebrate that promise today.

The Day After

The excitement that leads up to one day or the anxiety that comes in anticipation of a certain day eventually gives way to the next day. For students, the major exam comes and then the next day there is residual anxiety waiting for results or sadness or jubilation because of the results. For patients, the day of surgery arrives and the anxiety gives way to the reality of recovery and healing the next day. For couples getting married, there is great anticipation and joy as you wait for your wedding day and then it comes and after the honeymoon the next day arrives as you learn to settle into a new routine of two people living together. You buy a new car and after a few days of driving this vehicle and enjoying the new car smell, the first payment arrives. It is the next day. The excitement ebbs as the reality sets in that the next five years of your life is going to have payments. You reach the age where retirement is in sight. You have planned for this day and when the day finally arrives you go to work for the last time. There is celebration and then comes the next day and you have to decide what to do with your time.

There are numerous “next days” in life. These “next days” remind us that anxiety and anticipation eventually give way to learning to live with the outcome. As children we anticipate Christmas Day and the next day—we may discover that we aren’t nearly as fulfilled as we thought we would be.

The point is simply this. Life is not lived in excitement; life is lived in the next day. The anticipation and excitement of any particular event gives way to the reality that life must be lived in the routine. While we know this is true, we long for the exciting days. We like the novelty of such days and such days makes life more enjoyable. But we cannot remain in an artificially induced level of excitement.

Think about the next days in the Bible. In Exodus 2, Moses sees an Egyptian beating a Hebrew slave. Moses is the adopted grandson of Pharaoh. He is royalty. But the woman who was hired to raise him was his mother. Hearing her stories about God’s people, Moses takes matters into his own hands and kills the Egyptian. The next day he is confronted by another Hebrew who saw the whole thing. Now Moses flees to preserve his life. What seemed like a good idea turned into the reality of living as an exile the next day.

In Exodus 8, God has brought Moses back to lead his people out of bondage. A series of plagues take place to prove that God is greater than all of Egypt’s gods. It is during the plague of frogs when the frogs are everywhere in the land—in the people’s bed, everywhere they walk, in their work areas—and Moses gives Pharaoh the honor of deciding when the frogs will leave Egypt. Pharaoh decides the next day is the right time. And when the frogs leave Pharaoh is unconvinced about God’s power.

David demands the body of Bathsheba for one night. A child is conceived. David exchanged the passion of one night for the death of one of his best friends, for his integrity as king, and for the death of the child. The next day reality comes.

In Luke 2, we have the birth of Jesus and with all the splendor of that event—the angels herald Jesus’ arrival to a group of shepherds who go to the stable to see the baby. It is a wonderful night. It is a night filled with praise. But the shepherds left. The angels went back to their celestial home. And the darkness of that night gave way to the light of the next day. And the next day is the reality of taking care of baby and that isn’t always wonderful.

The day after the shepherds came to worship the newborn babe must have been a let down day. It isn’t possible to stay enthused all the time. Sooner rather than later, Mary and Joseph got into the routine of feeding, diapering, and raising this newborn. Other children came along. Life was filled with routine. Jesus learned and developed like most children do. While the images of the night of worship never left them, life cannot stop at one day. It isn’t possible for Mary and Joseph and even baby Jesus to preserve the stable night with shepherds, angels, and worship. Life has to move on. We don’t always like it, but such is reality.

One of the more significant next days is the day after Jesus’ crucifixion. It is the next day when the reality that dreams have been shattered and shuttered. The reality that there is no motivation. No desire to eat, sleep runs away and yet there is a fatigue that cannot be healed by one night of sleep. Add to that confusion, there would have been significant guilt as each disciple was aware that he had left the Savior.

So What?

We live in the next day. We became a Christian and after our baptism came the next day. We still live in the next day. The excitement of our baptism cannot be maintained but the reality that living faithfully brings joy and we live with a mission in mind—to honor Jesus and to share him with others.

We live in the next day. It is in many ways routine. This is the real challenge for us. Do not despise the next day or to wish it away. The real challenge comes in recognizing that to live each day honoring God is real joy. But it is also to live in the next day with anticipation. A child experiences a special birthday and begins to long for the next birthday celebration. A child’s eyes beam with excitement at Christmas and as soon as the day is over begins anticipating the next Christmas.

We live in the next day but with anticipation for the best next day of all. A disciple of Jesus dies, but the next day is with the Lord. This is the day we anticipate. The death of a loved one brings sorrow and grief to us who remain on this earth. We rightly grieve our loss and try to adjust to life without this person. But for the disciple, death leads to the next day of being with God. And for us who remain behind, we grieve with hope knowing that we, too, one day will be with God. And if the Lord returns before death, then we walk this earth with the anticipation that one day—the next day—Jesus will return and the next day we will be with God.

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