The meaning of life

[AI translation] Dear Brothers and Sisters! Another year has passed and here is a new one. So the years come and go one after another. Here is the New Year. New? Yes, today it may seem a little new, we may feel a little new. But tomorrow, this so-called New Year, or the day after tomorrow, and the day after that, will be just as grey and monotonous as the years before. The holidays will pass and then everything will start all over again, what we are so used to and have done so many times before. The office, work, the factory, school, all the worries and responsibilities of everyday life, and then another holiday, or perhaps a new year, and then a new year, and then it all starts again. It's a big, unbroken cycle of life, work and rest, day and night, waking and sleeping, cheerfulness and sadness, getting on and off, and so on. And then somewhere, either in wakefulness, or in sleep, or in rest, suddenly the cycle is broken and life stops. But then what was it all for? What was the point of it all? Perhaps one could say, what is the point of our whole life on earth? This is a question that sooner or later crosses the mind of every human being. It is only natural, because if you think about it, human life is not that long. If we take the high view, it is about 80 years. And how much of that is really lived? Childhood fades away like a dream. We only remember them when they are over, when they are gone. Then, after learning a trade, or finishing school, or getting married, for a while we feel that, well, now the real thing begins! What is worth living for, what is worth putting your ambition into. Then, all that was so beautiful, all that was so inspiring, all that one did with such ambition, slowly fades away, and one feels more and more that one is caught up in the grind of life's treadmill of 'what to eat, what to drink and what to wear'. In the meantime, of course, you might get somewhere. Maybe you get a better job, maybe you get a higher salary, maybe you expand your family, have children and slowly you start to grow old. Sometimes we are sad, sometimes we are cheerful, sometimes we love, sometimes we are angry, sometimes we are better off, sometimes we are not, sometimes we laugh, sometimes we cry, and so we go on down the increasingly dull road of life, ever more weary and ever older, until one day the road runs out and death comes.Outwardly, this is more or less the life of every human being. But what is the point of it all? Is life really like a dream? Is it a nice, sweet dream, or an ugly dream? Is life really like a play, a comedy or a tragedy? To each his own. But in any case, the question remains: is there any meaning at all? Was it even worth spending these few decades here on this earth? And especially today, it is becoming an almost digestive question for all humanity. We all know very well that we live in the age of the machine. Today everything is mechanised. In the Middle Ages, the work of the individual was much more personal. He could put his knowledge, his art into what he did. Perhaps the work was not as easy and quick for him as it is for today's workers, but in any case, what he created was his creation. And today it is this personal character that he lacks most of all. To take just the most obvious example, a lifetime on an assembly line, in a single movement, to make one tiny piece of a large whole, such as a house or a factory. Of course, this is also very useful and necessary work, and one could not imagine working in any other way today. But this only reinforces the question for us: what is the point of it all? Today's human being is increasingly becoming a part of the machine, or of an office machine. He himself is a small screw, or perhaps a small engine in some larger machine. And it is precisely in this era of mechanisation that the question becomes really burning: what is the point of it all? Are we not in danger of simply losing sight of why we are alive at all? Is it to have more money, or is it to give ourselves more pleasure? Or is it to eat and drink better and dress better? Or so that we can afford to travel abroad as often as possible? Or so that we can honestly do our daily work, raise our children and launch them into so-called life and other such honourable goals? So is that really the real meaning of living?
Well, Jesus set a higher goal for us when he said, seek first the kingdom of God and its righteousness, and the rest will be given to you. It's as if Jesus was saying that you will get all your ordinary work right if you get it right from God's side, if you get it right from God's side. So Jesus is embedding the whole of human life, as it were, in another world order, the world order of the kingdom of God. He puts it in the grand context of God's world plan. Let me try to illustrate this with a very weak example. We are all familiar with this little line from a poem by Petőfi: "At the twilight of a summer's day, I paused by the winding Tisza."
That's right, it makes sense, all the words are in place, it expresses a logical idea, everyone understands it immediately. But, if somebody happened to say this sentence, "At the setting of the summer sun, the winding elephant stopped," it wouldn't make any sense. Although the word elephant does express something, it makes no sense in this context. It doesn't make sense because it doesn't fit into the sentence, the idea that the sentence is trying to express. It doesn't fit into the larger context, it sort of hangs out of it. This word doesn't know where to put itself, this word is out of place, this word clutters up the whole idea. A word is in its place if it fits into the context of the whole sentence, into the idea that the sentence is trying to express. Well, that's kind of how our human life is. Every human life expresses something, says something, like a word that is spoken and then dies. It may be a long word or a short word, it may be a pleasant word or an unpleasant word, it doesn't matter, it makes sense if it is in its place and if it expresses something that is part of a larger thought, a larger whole. Then even if the word dies, the meaning remains in the sentence, because the life of the person dies. But, if it is part of a larger context, a larger train of thought, then it has meaning and it remains meaningful. Now, God's thought, God's plan is nothing other than what Jesus says: "the kingdom of God". But it could also be said this way: The extension of God's loving reign. I do not want to explain in detail here what the kingdom of God is. Volumes have been written about it and volumes could be written about it. I would simply like to remind you of what Jesus said: 'The kingdom of God has come near to you', and in doing so he pointed to himself. So He is the kingdom of God? Look at Jesus, He came in Him and He became visible to us in Him! Where is the kingdom of God? Where Jesus is. And you are in the kingdom of God if you have Jesus in your heart as your redeeming God, your teaching Master and the supreme Lord of your life. So seek first the kingdom of God and its truth. Something like that, so that it may be my chief concern and my first endeavour that my whole life, with all its physical and spiritual aspects, may be as much as possible under the lordship and influence of Jesus, so that then the spirit of Jesus, His love, goodness, patience, serenity, peace, may all this, all this may radiate through my words and actions to other people. So in this train of thought there is an emphasis on both, on my being influenced by Jesus as fully as possible, and on Jesus' influence flowing as fully as possible, through me, to others. For God wants to redeem this human world and to extend His kingdom to everyone. This is His redemptive idea, this is His great world plan for this world, and it is in this higher context that Jesus wants to place the lives of all people.
So we do not live not only to somehow solve the problems of "what to eat, what to drink, or what to wear" by working hard or not so hard, or to raise our children, or perhaps to buy a car or furnish a condominium. It all makes as much sense as we have realized in or around us of the kingdom of God and its righteousness. So from its effects, its blessings. In other words, the meaning of our life is that God says through it what He wants to say and so fits into a higher thought, a larger sentence. Otherwise, it will hang out, it will not find its place, it will not be able to do anything with itself, as so many people's lives are. So to fit harmoniously into the love with which God wants to express His redemptive idea in this world. So seek first the kingdom of God. And here, as it were, God emphasizes that first. This should be the main point, above all else. It is a program that is true even without faith in Jesus. For what is the truth of the kingdom of God? This word, righteousness, does not sufficiently express the true sense of the word used here in the original text, which expresses rather some legitimate righteousness, a righteousness that is lawful. Righteous, that is, something to the effect that the other person has a right to what I formulate as a right. And that if humanity on one side of the world had devoted more energy and effort to the idea that people on the other side of the world have a right to the same prosperity and the same peace, freedom and culture that they enjoy, then this world would be a much less tense place today, and there would be fewer seemingly insoluble problems to worry our hearts about. We do not have the luxury of worrying only about 'what to eat, what to drink and what to wear', and that should be our main concern. But so often we waste our time and energy on so many other things that we simply do not have the time and energy for what gives our lives their purpose and substance: to seek the kingdom of God and to exercise and claim our 'right' as citizens to belong there. In the words of Francis of Assisi's well-known beautiful prayer, "How can I be an instrument of God's peace? So that I may be able to love where there is hatred, to forgive those who have offended, to unite where there is discord, to spread hope where there is despair, to shine light where there is darkness, to bring joy where there is sorrow."
Look, Brothers and Sisters, so that life will not be a tiresome vegetation and a constant circle in one place, but will be something truly great, something that I can welcome every day with the gratitude that I can do something today to spread the reign of God's love. That would be something really new in this new year. It's a time when every person longs for something new. This thought is also, unspokenly, lurking in the background of New Year's greetings. So, what is really new, what you can contribute to make this year happier than the last, is the love of Jesus that you can spread around you so that people can feel and see something of it.
And, finally, whoever subordinates his life to this aspect will not have time to brood and wonder about other things, because he will find that they will all work themselves out for him. The problem of "what to eat, what to drink, and what to wear" is the problem that Jesus says will be given to you. The problems of life, on which we have wasted so much energy, will be nicely sorted out because God takes care of everything. He takes care of food, bread, strength, sustenance. These are the things that are given, given in addition to those who seek the kingdom of God and serve its righteousness. Believe me, Brothers and Sisters, this is the only way to live truly and the only way to live at all! At the end of such a life you will say that it was worth it! It was worth working, it was worth suffering, it was worth crying, it was worth laughing, it was worth everything, because everything had a meaning. Because it all fitted into a greater whole, the Service of the Kingdom of God. A life that is ordered under the Lordship of Jesus never strays into labyrinths, meaninglessness and futility. Such a life, under the protection and guidance of Jesus, moves on to a sure eternity!
Amen
Date: 1 January 1970.