Vultures and Corpses...

So... I was perplexed this morning during my quiet time. I was reading from the Gospel of Luke and found something Jesus said:

"Where the corpses are, there the vultures will gather."

It seemed like a really odd thing for him to say. I read a bit of the context and the disciples were asking Him about the end times. He basically gave them a few details, but they pressed him further -- They asked, "Where is all this going to happen?"

Jesus said, "Where the corpses are, there the vultures will gather."

It is engimatic question. The references and study guides were of no help at all. They all pointed to the end times jargon that fills way too many pages of books, and consumes way to many of our best minds in meaningless speculation.

So I got a revelation in the shower -- God mostly speaks to me in the shower. If you've read this blog at all, you've heard me say this. The revelation was simple: Jesus was basically insulting them for even asking the question. Think about it, they're bugging him about details and he quips about gathering around dead bodies.

A modern translation would read something like this: "Hey Jesus, you say all this bad stuff is going to happen, tell us where." Jesus pondered a moment and said, "Stop rubber-necking the trainwreck."

In other words, quit being so dang consumed about who's going down, when it's going down, and where it's going to be. Do you want to be a vulture? Is death all you care about? Focus on life, cause that's what I am about.

You ever meet those kind of people that seem to only want to give you the bad news? I mean as soon as you walk in the door, they are full of information about who has cancer, who just died, whose wife just left them... you know the kind, glass half-empty people feasting off everyone else's disasters.

I think it kind of grates of Jesus' nerves after a while. He'd heard enough. He spouted off... "You're like a bunch of vultures, circling around my every word looking for doom and gloom." In so many words, I think he told the disciples to shut up and get on with living.

Maybe that's what we should say when the folks around us are so concerned with the misfortune of others that they can't even live their own lives with grace and dignity. I'd like to say, that's just a thought. But it's not. It's a Word. Take it how you will.