Sufficient Is The Day
In 63 BC, Pompey laid siege to Jerusalem. 70 years later, the Romans are still in charge, oppressing the people; only allowing most of them to eek out a meager existence.
A warm summer breeze blows from the South, carrying the distinct scent of the fish markets around the Sea of Galilee to the surrounding hillside. Hundreds of people are seated in a semi-circle listening to a man most only know as an itinerate preacher, a man called Jesus from Nazareth, as he teaches what would be known more than a millennia later as the Beatitudes.
As his sermon draws to a close, Jesus teaches, “Take therefore no thought for the morrow: for the morrow shall take thought for the things of itself. Sufficient unto the day is the evil thereof.”
Little do they know that Jesus will lay down his life in the not-too-distant future and take it up again according to prophecy. Jesus was aware of that part of his mission, but right now he is there to teach these people; his people.
A few years later and half a world away, Jesus — now resurrected and glorified — delivers an almost identical sermon to people in the Americas: “Take therefore no thought for the morrow, for the morrow shall take thought for the things of itself. Sufficient is the day unto the evil thereof.”
