Be watchful! Be alert!
You do not know when the time will come.
The disciples were not given a point by point schedule of how salvation history would unfold around which they could plan their lives. Instead, Jesus required them to be available and to be ready. Yet even though he warned them that his passion was imminent the disciples who went with him to Gethsemane still fell asleep. After the resurrection they still desired to solve the difficulty of their lack of knowledge by asking if Jesus would at that time restore the Kingdom. But he answered, "It is not for you to know times or seasons that the Father has fixed by his own authority" (see Acts 1:7). The hour of the Passion, the day of Judgment on Jerusalem, the day of his second coming, and also the days of their individual deaths were not to be revealed in advance. This meant that it would most likely be impossible to live a lazy and mediocre life, unresponsive to the call to conversion, and then to make oneself ready at the last possible moment. It was more likely that such a life of stockpiling riches and building silos of increasing scale to store them would result in that day catching one by surprise.
It is like a man traveling abroad.
He leaves home and places his servants in charge,
each with his own work,
and orders the gatekeeper to be on the watch.
Jesus placed visible distance between himself and his Church in order that he might reign through the servants he placed in charge, each gifted with different spiritual gifts for the building up of the body of Christ, so that "you are not lacking in any spiritual gift as you wait for the revelation of our Lord Jesus Christ". It was to this that Jesus' disciples were called to be attentive. Jesus desired that when he returned he find his disciples faithful in carrying out this commission. Let's look at this related passage from Luke:
And the Lord said, “Who then is the faithful and wise manager, whom his master will set over his household, to give them their portion of food at the proper time? Blessed is that servant whom his master will find so doing when he comes. Truly, I say to you, he will set him over all his possessions. But if that servant says to himself, ‘My master is delayed in coming,’ and begins to beat the male and female servants, and to eat and drink and get drunk, the master of that servant will come on a day when he does not expect him and at an hour he does not know, and will cut him in pieces and put him with the unfaithful (see Luke 12:42-47).
This applied in a special way to the gatekeepers of the Church who were to be particularly attentive to the building up of the body, especially solicitous to use their spiritual gifts for the good of those in their care. But we all, in some measure, have been given a share in the authority of the master. All of us has been given gifts to use for the building of the Kingdom. Therefore Jesus spoke not only to his disciples: "What I say to you, I say to all: ‘Watch!’"
We are called to remember the coming of the Lord, but not in such a way that his coming distracts us from our mission in this life, but rather so that it reinforces it. Since we don't know the time of his coming we must be constantly faithful to the work we have been assigned. That he is coming does not make the call to our daily vocations, even if they are mundane and humble, insignificant in any way. Rather, by living our daily tasks well in the light of the coming of Christ we will find ourselves ready to meet him. By caring for those who bear his image we make us ready to welcome him. It is this light of his coming that transforms our daily tasks are transformed from a drudgery done out of necessity to a stewardship of love.
It is indeed the case that Jesus comes, not only at the end of time, but daily in the Eucharist and even more frequently in invitations to be open to his grace. The more we desire him and hope for him the more we will be open to all that he wants to do in us and through us by these other comings.
Advent can be a time when we practice being ready for the coming of Christ. One day we do know is the day when we will celebrate Christmas this year. May our fidelity to our daily work help us to be like the shepherds and the Magi, alert to his coming, ready to welcome him and pay him homage.
Would that you might meet us doing right,
that we were mindful of you in our ways!
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