Keep Watch

It is the middle of the night. The house is dark and silent. And by the front door, one servant sits awake, listening for footsteps on the road, because the master could come home at any moment.

It is the last week of Jesus' life before the cross. He has been teaching in the temple in Jerusalem. As they leave, one of his disciples points at the huge, beautiful stones of the temple buildings. Jesus tells them that one day not one stone will be left on another. Later, sitting on the Mount of Olives, looking across the valley at the temple glowing in the evening light, four of his friends ask him privately: Peter, James, John and Andrew. When will these things happen? What will the sign be? Jesus speaks to them about troubles to come, and about the day when the Son of Man will come in the clouds with great power and glory. And then he tells them something surprising.

“But of that day and that hour knows no man, no, not the angels which are in heaven, neither the Son, but the Father.” Nobody can set a date. Not the cleverest teacher. Not the angels. Jesus says even he, the Son, in the days when he lived as a man on earth, did not claim to know it. Only the Father knows. So guessing dates is pointless. What matters is something else. “Take heed, watch and pray: for you know not when the time is.” Pay attention. Stay awake. Keep praying.

Then Jesus tells a short story. It is like a man going on a long journey. He leaves his house and puts his servants in charge, giving each one his work. And he commands the doorkeeper to keep watch. The doorkeeper's job is to be ready to open the door the moment the master returns. Then Jesus speaks directly to his friends. “Watch therefore: for you know not when the master of the house comes, at evening, or at midnight, or at the cockcrowing, or in the morning.” Any moment of the night. “Lest coming suddenly he find you sleeping.”

Jesus is not trying to frighten them. He is telling them how to live. A servant who loves his master does not spend the night anxiously checking the clock. He gets on with the work he has been given, and he keeps the lamp lit and the door ready. And then Jesus widens the circle. He has been talking to four fishermen on a hillside. But his last sentence is for everyone who would ever follow him. “And what I say unto you I say unto all, Watch.” That includes us.

Jesus' four times of night match the way the Romans divided the night into four watches, each roughly three hours long: evening, midnight, cockcrow and early morning. Mark's gospel uses this Roman system. And a few chapters later, the times come up again: Peter denies Jesus as the cock crows, and the chief priests hand Jesus over to Pilate early in the morning.

Keep watch. You can read it in Mark chapter thirteen, verses thirty-two to thirty-seven. The word Advent comes from the Latin for coming. The weeks before Christmas look back to Jesus' first coming as a baby in Bethlehem, and forward to the day Christians believe he will come again. We do not know when. We are simply told: stay awake, keep working, keep the door ready. So here is a question to carry with you. Jesus said to all his followers: watch. What would it look like for you to be awake and ready for him?