It All Seemed Normal

Jesus says that the coming of the Son of Man will be like the days of Noah (Matthew 24:36 – 42). When we think of the days of Noah we think of wickedness (Genesis 6:5), and I’m sure that is part of what we are to think of when we consider Matthew 24 and its association with Noah, but that isn’t what Jesus points out, Jesus says, “They were eating and drinking and marrying,” they were doing normal things, the things people do every day – they didn’t know that a flood was coming; but Noah did, he was warned by God (Hebrews 11:7).

Yes, elsewhere in Matthew 24 and elsewhere in the Bible are what we might call “the signs of the times” (I think in some respect every generation lives in its own “times” with signs), but the specific things that Jesus points out about the days of Noah is that people were doing normal things, the same things we do today. So I think it might be wise not to get too hung up on looking for the dramatic and thinking, “When I see the dramatic I’ll adjust my way of living”; because it isn’t in the midst of the dramatic that we necessarily ought to be awake and alert, but rather in the midst of the mundane, of the normal, of that which lulls us to sleep. There is a day when eating and drinking and marriage are interrupted, and that is the day we need to be prepared for – and we ought to live as if today is that day – after all, Jesus concludes his observation about the days of Noah with the words, “Watch therefore, for you do not know what hour your Lord is coming…for the Son of Man is coming at an hour when you do not expect Him.”

It all seemed normal – the eating, the drinking, the wedding, the workday…it all seemed normal…and then it wasn’t.