Lo, the day is coming, blazing like an oven, when all the proud and all evildoers will be stubble, and the day that is coming will set them on fire, leaving them neither root nor branch, says the LORD of hosts. But for you who fear my name, there will arise the sun of justice with its healing rays.

Waiting for Godot is a play by Samuel Beckett, in which two characters, Vladimir and Estragon, wait endlessly and in vain for the arrival of someone, named Godot. Godot’s absence, as well as numerous other aspects of the play, has led to many different interpretations. Mary Bryden observed, “The … God who emerges from Beckett’s texts is one who is both cursed for His perverse absence and cursed for His surveillant presence. He is by turns dismissed, satirized, or ignored, but He, and His tortured Son, are never definitively discarded.”

Malachi prophesied that the day of the Lord was coming. He lived about 445 years before Jesus was born. Thirty more years would go by before Jesus began His public ministry. Today’s gospel shows Jesus to be 33, in Jerusalem, and days away from His sacrificial death on the cross.

Throughout Jesus’ ministry many who followed Him had a level of self-assurance that He would free Israel from earthly captivity. When Jesus refused to be proclaimed an earthly king many lost faith in Him. They never saw that He was there to free them from a much greater captivity. They missed the day of the Lord. They deceived themselves.

Jesus said that no matter what: “See that you not be deceived.” Complacency is the way we deceive ourselves. Waiting in vain is deception. Waiting and missing “it” is deception.

We deceive ourselves when we sit around speculating on the “last day.” Rather than waiting for God we have to go out and seek Him. We have to follow His word, walk in His path, and bring others to share in fellowship with Him. We must live in Him and proclaim with the wisdom He gives us through His teaching: His day is today!!!

Research has shown that, when a fire alarm rings, people do not act immediately. They talk to each other, and they try to work out what is going on. They stand around – waiting. Do you remember your last fire drill? Instead of leaving fast, people wait. They wait for more clues – the smell of smoke, or advice from someone they trust. So often those who wait end up dead.

We can trust Jesus. The fire alarm is going off every day. We needn’t worry about the fire itself, but rather whether we have listened to Him in the midst of the fire and are on the path to life. Walk toward life, do not sit and wait. Recognize today as the day of the Lord.