There is a true story about a man who was away on a business trip and was using a rental car on a highway that was a toll road. In the process of driving, he kept going through tollbooths without paying because he was used to doing that at home as his tolls were tracked through his transponder and paid through his credit card. After he went through a couple of tollbooths without paying, he realized that there was no transponder in the car and that he probably should stop. But he kept going through the tollbooths anyway, figuring that either the rental company would pay the tolls or that the state wouldn’t bother billing him for what was most likely a small amount.
A few months passed and the man received a toll violation notice. When he opened it up and read the bill, he found that he was right about the small amount of the tolls; they came to a total of $3.90. However, he blew through five toll booths and that cost him $20 each, for a total bill of $103.90! Indeed, the state did catch up with him and, in the end, he paid a high price.
In a sense, that is what Jesus is warning us about in today’s Gospel passage. While it may seem like we have a lot of time and that, perhaps, our failures will not catch up with us, Jesus lets us know that our time may be short and that we can be sure that all that we have done in this life – both the good and the bad – will be dealt with at the end of time.
Some may look at this message as “fire and brimstone,” but it really comes out of Jesus’ love for us and out of His sincere desire that we join Him in Paradise one day.
Let us pray that we may see this message as one of hope and not one that is meant to scare us, and may each day be for us a day of preparation for the Day of the LORD. +
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