Stay Awake

Jesus said to his disciples: “Stay awake! For you do not know on which day your Lord will come. Be sure of this: if the master of the house had known the hour of night when the thief was coming, he would have stayed awake and not let his house be broken into. So too, you also must be prepared, for at an hour you do not expect, the Son of Man will come.

“Who, then, is the faithful and prudent servant, whom the master has put in charge of his household to distribute to them their food at the proper time? Blessed is that servant whom his master on his arrival finds doing so. Amen, I say to you, he will put him in charge of all his property.

But if that wicked servant says to himself, ‘My master is long delayed,’ and begins to beat his fellow servants, and eat and drink with drunkards, the servant’s master will come on an unexpected day and at an unknown hour and will punish him severely and assign him a place with the hypocrites, where there will be wailing and grinding of teeth.” (Matthew 24:42-51)

We must be awake every day because Jesus comes every day.  Matthew tells us Jesus said to his disciples, “…you also must be prepared, for at an hour you do not expect, the Son of Man will come.”  Matthew and his audience were waiting for Jesus to come again.  That was their mindset and expectation; however, for all of us in the 21st century we need a mindset of he is already here and always will be present for us – that we need to be awake and to listen to him.

For example, are we “faithful and prudent servants, whom the master has put in charge of his household to distribute to them their food at the proper time?” Are we charitable?  Are we kind?  Or, are we wicked servants and hypocrites?  Do we understand what the Eucharist accomplishes?

The Son of Man comes at any time.  How will we greet him?  How will we prepare?

Deacon David Pierce