The Gospel passage for this week looks at Jesus' Second Coming (Mark 13:24-37). There are two ways in which this can help us to 'make the most of now' (to parody the Vodaphone advert). Firstly it helps us to appreciate what we have. The Lord's Prayer talks of the Second Coming as heaven coming down to earth. This is a hard concept to grasp because our brains are no longer conditioned for reverence and awe. We cannot imagine a Second Coming that would not reported on the television evening news. It will be an end to life, as we know it and this affects how we view 'now'. Think of a real as compared to a plastic flower. The real flower is more beautiful to us because we know that it is going to die. Secondly, the fact that we don't know when the Second Coming will happen means that we have to learn to live each day as if it were our last. John Wesley was asked how he would change his plans for the day if he knew that Christ was returning at the end of that day. He replied he would not change anything. Might we be able to say the same thing?

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