"Whatever you did for the least of these brothers of mine, you did for me."  Matt 25:40

On the week before Jesus was to be brutally killed, the disciples could feel the pace of events picking up.  They asked Jesus about how things end.  "Will there be a happy ending to this story?"  (Matt 24:3)

Jesus unfolds the climax of humanity's story for them and for us in Matthew 24 and 25.  And his followers since then have written out detailed guesses as to how it will all play out.  Theologians have a whole area of study called eschatology to encompass their theories and guesses.

I remember, as I was growing up, the palpable sense of fear I had about the impending end of all things.  The Late Great Planet Earth sold millions of copies during the cold war and we evangelicals hunkered down in our paranoia and entirely missed the point Jesus was making.

His point is that God has an expectation of man. We don't just get to live our lives for our own pleasure.  There will be a reckoning for how we live and he will apply a criterion in assessing the quality of our life.  He will separate us into two groups and he will look at one thing about our lives.  How did we love those in need? He feels what they feel and he wants relief. His heart breaks for the pain he sees down here. He wants ours to break as well so that we'll act in his stead to alleviate that pain.

The question is knowing this, how will we live our lives? There are so many distractions, so many ways to miss the point. And I suppose that breaks his heart too.

God help me, God help us as we answer that question.