Keep Watch

Monday, December 7, 2020

Mark 13:35-37

“Therefore keep watch because you do not know when the owner of the house will come back—whether in the evening, or at midnight, or when the rooster crows, or at dawn. If he comes suddenly, do not let him find you sleeping. What I say to you, I say to everyone: ‘Watch!’

Dear Friends,

Too often, at a young age, I would sit up in bed, soaked in sweat from another nightmare where an electric razor buzzed away in the sink while some 70’s ballad melodically played in the background—you’ve been left bee-hiiiind… I still shudder thinking about those years. Later in high school, I was swept into the End Times craze of the mid 90’s when the Left Behind series made its debut onto the shelves of Christian book stores throughout our country. Determined to buy a Range Rover and withstand any Tribulation to come, I fantasized about surviving in a way that would make Jesus proud, whatever that meant. 

I spent so much time thinking about what’s to come instead of what’s right now. The time I spent on “what if” instead of “what is.” Wasteful, fear-ridden propaganda to my young, impressionable heart. Jesus spoke more often about what his followers are to do NOW instead of the NOT-YET because the NOW does effect the NOT-YET but we are not in control of the NOT-YET. We can barely manage the NOW. 

While with humanity, Jesus revealed the character and nature of God. Jesus lived fully present with people, totally available. He was near them, with them, connected to them where they were at in that moment, not wherever he was heading next. He never seemed overly concerned about where to go later or what tomorrow would bring. He didn’t obsessively think or talk about the future throughout his ministry. Yes, he brought it up on occasion, but not in the ways it has often dominated Christian thinking. 

Jesus spoke mostly about what it looks like to love people well today. Don’t take more than you need. Pray for people you don’t like. Do good to those who want to harm you. Share your resources. Include people who are usually excluded. Forgive rapidly. Serve the marginalized first. Be a person of peace. Love yourself and love each other and love God because God is love.

Friends, we are to keep watch because we are to live every day with intentionality, not wasting any opportunity to love well. When we worry, when we obsess, when we are preoccupied in all the NOT-YET’s of this life, we miss the NOW we’ve been gifted, today. We have all felt this year that, “Each day has enough trouble of its own,” and sometimes it’s hard enough to manage even that. Jesus invites a posture of surrendering tomorrow so we can be present with today: “So don’t worry about tomorrow,” as Jesus said in Matthew 6:34.

May we prepare room, today, to focus on the parts of life that matter most: God’s way of peace and love. May we pay attention this Advent and keep watch, not for what we do not know but for what we do know—that God has come near.

With (love),

Bethany