Choose This Day

"Choose this day whom you will serve... but as for me and my household, we will serve the Lord." - Joshua 24:15

"We do not want you to be uninformed... so that you may not grieve as others do who have no hope." - 1 Thessalonians 4:13

"Keep awake therefore, for you know neither the day nor the hour." - Matthew 25:13

Reflection

Joshua is an old man at Shechem, and he does something preachers are warned not to do: he makes commitment harder, not easier. The people swear loyalty - "Far be it from us to forsake the Lord!" - and Joshua pushes back: "You cannot serve the Lord, for he is a holy God." He's not talking them out of it. He's refusing cheap vows. Choose this day whom you will serve, he says - the gods beyond the River, the gods of the Amorites in whose land you're living, or the Lord. Note what he does not offer: a third option called "spiritual but undecided." Serving something is not optional. The only question is what.

And notice what the choice is anchored to: memory. "It is the Lord our God who brought us up from the land of Egypt, out of the house of slavery." The covenant is not signed in the abstract; it's signed by people who can name what God delivered them from. That's why Psalm 78 stands beside it: "We will not hide them from their children; we will tell to the coming generation the glorious deeds of the Lord." Faith that isn't narrated doesn't survive a generation. Choose this day - and tell somebody why.

Paul writes to Thessalonians who buried members of their own congregation and were told, perhaps, that the dead would miss the main event. He refuses both despair and triumphalism: you do not grieve as others do who have no hope - not that you don't grieve. The dead in Christ do not miss a thing; they rise first. And his whole theology of the end times fits in one verse: "Therefore encourage one another with these words." Not calculate. Not panic. Encourage.

Then the bridesmaids. Half wise, half foolish, and all of them drowsy - "as the bridegroom was delayed, all of them became drowsy and slept." The delay is not the failure; even the wise slept. The failure was showing up to a vigil with an unlit lamp and nothing to refill it. Oil is the quiet, unglamorous accumulation of faithfulness - the prayers said when no one was watching, the justice done that made the news nowhere, the love kept warm through the long middle of the wait. The door shut is a hard word, and it's meant to be: there are things you cannot borrow at the last minute. A life with God is not transferable.

So: choose this day. Grieve with hope. And keep your lamp filled, because the shout at midnight always comes at midnight.

Prayer

God of Shechem and of midnight, you brought us up out of the houses of slavery; help us choose you again today, and tell the coming generation why.

When we grieve, give us hope that grieves honestly. When you delay, keep our lamps filled with the quiet faithfulness no one sees.

Come, bridegroom. We will be awake.

Blessing

Choose this day, and be chosen. Your grief carries hope, your lamp can be refilled while it's still lit, and the God who brought you out is the God who's coming in. Keep awake.