This morning in church we were thinking about flag poles. We reviewed the Eddie Izzard sketch of “the flag”. What flag do you fly? At church, in work? What should you fly? If you have a flag pole you could fly a flag to show “the King is in residence” and this would be seen by many, the number depending on how tall the flag pole is.
If you fly no flag someone else will try and take the flag pole to fly their flag on, just like Eddie Izzard’s take on how to build an empire with the cunning use of flags. Think about it for yourself, your home, your work and your church.
And then we have the “Changing seasons”. The signs are usually seen before now! Right now there are berries and the nights are getting longer, ponies are changing coats etc. How the season changes might tell of what the next season holds. The signs in nature are as flags to us, things to notice that tell us something, in this case they herald the change of season and possibly tell us of what’s ahead in terms of severity of the winter.
And these changing seasons also happen in our own lives and walks. Change is natural and you can’t fight it or prevent it, it’s even part of the ageing process.
Seasons are for us as individuals as well as parts of church families and whole churches. It’s really important to hear or notice a coming change and not waste time trying to do something which is just too “last season” for words, even gone out of fashion.
Jesus had a season of growing up – A season as a carpenter – A season preparing and preaching before His death; a three year season we are told. He DID know what was next because it was in accordance with His plan, we don’t always know and must resist the temptation to follow our own plan when it might not be HIS.
There are other signs in the world and ones which we may not be able to interpret well, California running out of water, China losing its rivers, Russia threatening the West and then there is the Islamic State and young British happy to kill in the name of religion, again, only this time on the other side, as Muslims not Crusaders. Ebola in Africa and stolen school girls still not returned.
Is the world really darker or is it just that we can hear about atrocities more quickly through modern technology? If it is darker what does that tell us and how should we prepare? The Bible clearly teaches about the end. Read: Matthew 10:21-24 and Matthew 24:30 onwards.
Homo Sapiens arrived in the last 200,000 years and it appears developed alongside the Neanderthals who had been around evolving for ages. Jesus came at the very end, just over 2000 years ago. He talked about this whole season as The End and also gave us “final signs”. I am not trying to predict when this will be or what it will look like but if it is to come how do we prepare?
Being ready
Have your lamps lit
Know your Saviour
Fly the right flag
Don’t put off until tomorrow what you should do today
Don’t miss God given opportunities for change