The Lutheran Hour
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"Keep Watch"
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Text: Mark 13:32-37
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God’s grace, mercy, and peace are with us today as we close out the church year and look forward to another Advent Season.
A television commercial some time ago pictures a man about ready to let go of his bowling ball. He’s eyeing the pins at the end of the lane, and just as he’s about ready to release the ball, he’s lifted out of himself by two men in sparkling white suits. He walks off across the bowling lanes and onto a staircase surrounded by clouds. At first he doesn’t understand. What’s going on? But then it suddenly dawns on him. He has just died!
He looks at the two white-haired men at his side and asked in disbelief, “Are you sure it was supposed to be me? I was working on a string of strikes!” Convinced that there’s no mistake, he goes off reluctantly and shrugs: “Boy, I guess I just wasn’t ready!” Now the point of that commercial is that a person needs to be ready. A person’s life can end at any time, even while you are bowling. For the commercial sponsor, that means being ready by having appropriate life insurance, a “piece of the rock!”
“I guess I wasn’t ready!” There is no way to say those words without a bad feeling. Students say it when they stare at a terrible grade on a returned test. Baseball batters lament it as they slouch off to the dugout after yet another strike out. Hunters complain about it as they relive in their minds the big buck that got away while they had their gun on safety. “I guess I just wasn’t ready!”
When a prominent Hollywood star committed suicide a few years ago, his agent tried to explain it all away by saying, “I guess he just wasn’t ready for success!” Being ready is a good and necessary thing! Not being ready is bad news!
On this last Sunday of the church year we are reminded that of all the things for which to be ready, the most important is the Day of the Lord, or Judgment Day. In the Gospel lesson appointed for today, Jesus instructs all who are His disciples to be ready for His return; and the key word is watch! Stay awake! Four times in this short section of the Gospel of Mark, Jesus tells His followers to watch, be on guard, be alert! Don’t get caught sleeping! Be awake! Always be ready for the time when I come back, Jesus is saying, for you will never know when that time will come (see Mark 13: 33).
The Greek word for “watch” literally means to “chase sleep away.” No one can be alert and watching for an event if he or she is asleep at the same time. Sleep is a symbolic word for an extreme state of unpreparedness. Jesus told His disciples on the night He was betrayed and arrested to stay awake and pray for what was to come. But they all fell asleep!
In the Lord’s parable of the ten maidens in Matthew 25, five were foolish and five were wise. The five wise maidens were prepared with their oil in their lamps, ready and watching for the celebration; but the five foolish were asleep and unprepared. As the wedding party arrived, only the five wise women were awake and ready to come to the wedding celebration.
Jesus is coming back! The same Lord Jesus who was born as a baby at Bethlehem, who lived and died on the cross in payment for the world’s sins, who then came back to life victoriously and ascended into heaven is coming back! At our Lord’s ascension, two angels spoke to the upward gazing disciples, “This same Jesus, who was taken up from you into heaven, will come back!”
For Christians who believe and trust in Jesus Christ as their Lord and Savior, our Lord’s return is great news! As Jesus once explained in the Gospel of John (John 14:2-3) “In my Father’s House are many rooms… I am going there to prepare a place for you… I will come back and take you to be with Me that you will also be where I am.” Isn’t that great news? Our Lord Jesus Christ promises never to forsake us. As the Way, the Truth, and the Life, He promises to come back in order to take us to Himself – to our eternal home.
As Christians, sometimes we wonder when all this will happen. Some days we would prefer that Christ would return right now – today! As we look at all of our challenges and problems, the condition of the world, the way we feel, we think about how great, how fantastic, it would be to be in heaven at perfect peace and contentment and harmony. It all sounds so good!
We can be a little like the mountaineer’s wife who rarely traveled to civilization. As a preacher was talking to the mountain man, he said, “Are you ready for Judgment Day?” The mountain man queried, “Well, when’s it comin’?” The preacher told him, “Jesus might come today or He might come tomorrow.” “For goodness sakes, don’t tell the misses,” cautioned the mountain man, “She’d want to go both days!”
Jesus Christ will return to take us to be with Himself in glory, for His victory is our victory through faith. We just don’t know when that will happen, and so Jesus says in our text: “No one knows about that day or hour, not even the angels in heaven, nor the Son, only the Father” (Mark 13:32). Therefore, the bottom line from our Lord Jesus Christ is: Be ready! Be alert! Be awake! Be on the watch!
It would be horrific to say when Christ returns, “I guess I just wasn’t ready.” In fact, in Revelation we read, “Blessed is he who watches and keeps his clothing so that he will not have to walk around naked and ashamed in public.” Remember when so many of our mothers told us to make sure we were wearing newer underwear. “Wouldn’t it would be terrible,” mom said, “if you were in an accident and had torn underwear?”
The tragic result of not being ready is that we will not be with Jesus in heaven. If we are not with Jesus in faith now, we will not be with Him when He comes again to take us to be with Him in heaven.
It’s sad to think that there are many people today who are not watching for Christ’s return and will not be ready when He comes. Apathy runs through our society and even among some who call themselves Christians. We always think tomorrow is the time to get ready. “I’m just too busy now!” We hear people say, “I’ll get serious about it… when we have children… when the kids grow up… when I feel better… when I retire … and the list of excuses can go on and on and on.
The people in Noah’s day thought the same thing. While Noah preached and warned people that they needed to turn their lives over to God, he was mocked. And people just went about their merry lives. They forgot to be ready by having a right relationship with God. And in the end, they perished in the flood and they were all swept away.
The return of Christ is for sure, and it will be very sudden. Jesus compared His return to a lightning bolt that bursts from the sky without warning. In 1 Thessalonians, the return of Christ is compared to the arrival of an unexpected thief in the night. When Christ comes, there will be no time to prepare. You are either ready now before He comes, or you will never be ready at His coming. So, as Jesus tells us today, it’s time to wake up from our sleep of ho-hum business as usual. Jesus is coming, ready or not!
The question for us today is, “Are we ready for Jesus to return?”
The way to be ready for Jesus to return very simply is to be about our Lord’s business; that is, to be about what God wants us to do. Jesus, here in our text, compares our preparedness to a man who goes away on a trip and leaves his servants in charge of all of his business. When the owner of the house comes back suddenly, he expects the house and his affairs to be in order. When Christ returns, He expects His followers to be about His business, ready and watchful for His return. When we are about Christ’s business, we are ready. If we ignore His business, we will be unprepared.
To be ready for Jesus to come again does not mean that we separate ourselves from life; that we, like some believers in the past, climb some high mountain, and get dressed in white, and wait for Christ to come. No, we continue living! Each day is a gift from God to be lived fully and freely for Him. And in response to God’s grace in Christ, we live our lives as a joyful, thankful response, carrying out His business in the world!
This is an important message for us busy-busy people to hear today! Soon Christmas will be upon us again. In fact, how many of us have already been shopping the “pre-Christmas” sales this weekend? Friday, the day after Thanksgiving, is the biggest shopping day of the year. As we prepare for Christ’s birthday celebration, what will we have to do? Most of us will be cleaning and decorating our houses; you’re thinking about putting up a tree, buying and wrapping the perfect presents, going to parties and relative’s houses, and the list goes on and on. But having done all these things, will we be ready to celebrate God’s tremendous gift of His Son to be our Savior? Will God’s work have been done in all of these other things? Will we be ready for Christ to return to take us to be with Him in heaven?
Perhaps the clearest message of the Bible for our readiness for Christ’s return could be the Lord’s Word from the Apostle Paul when he writes, “Put on the Lord Jesus Christ!” We do not just see Jesus as someone who was here some 2,000 years ago or someone who will come again when the world blows up. We trust in Jesus today as our personal Lord and Savior who died for each of us on the cross of Calvary.
As we head into December and the Advent and Christmas Seasons, we remember to seek first the kingdom of God and His righteousness. To “put on the Lord Jesus Christ” we remain faithful to Him and His word. Set aside a special time in your day. It doesn’t have to be long. But spend some time with Jesus, your Savior. Read His word. Meditate on it. And as you do, the Holy Spirit clothes you with Him who washed away all of your sins and promises you everlasting life. As He fills you with that Living Word, you will want to speak to Him in response: in prayer and thanksgiving. You will desire to worship our Lord on a regular basis and receive the gift of His power and presence in Holy Communion. As you “put on the Lord Jesus Christ” His care and concern for others becomes your care and compassion for those around you.
Will we be ready for Christ to return? We will be, if we are about our Lord’s business of putting Him and His righteousness on for our lives. We will be ready when we have a piece of the rock – not life insurance, but the Lord Jesus Christ, our Rock, our Refuge, and our Redeemer.
Jesus says in Revelation 3:11, “I am coming soon. Hold tightly to what you have so no one can take your crown.” Like my son who used to hold so tightly to his special blanket when he was young, taking it to bed, carrying it around the house, dragging it along to church; that’s the way we cling, for all we are worth, to Jesus Christ. So like the Apostle Paul, we can be ready for Christ to return, and boldly say, “For me to live is Christ, to die is gain” (Philippians 1:21). That’s the way to be ready!
When Dwight D. Eisenhower was President of the United States, he once visited Denver, Colorado. His attention was called to a letter in the local newspaper saying that a six-year-old local boy was suffering from cancer and wished to see the President before he died. One Sunday morning a black limousine pulled up in front of the boy’s house. Ike stepped out of the car and knocked on the front door.
The father, Donald Haley, opened the door wearing faded jeans, an old shirt, and a day’s old beard. Standing in front of Mr. Haley was the President of the United States. President Eisenhower said to Mr. Haley’s son, “Paul, I understand you wanted to meet me. Glad to see you.” The President shook hands with him and showed him his limousine and then left a little later.
The Haleys’ family and friends talked about the president’s visit for a long time, but the father remembered it with regret shaking his head and saying, “What a way to meet the President. I wish I would have been ready!”
Today on this last Sunday of the church year, we praise our Lord and Savior Jesus Christ that He’s coming back. We are in His hands. Our future is secure, and we are about His business! By His grace, we are alert, and ready, and awake.
And so with early Christians, we too pray, “Maranatha” which means “Come Lord Jesus, come quickly!” Amen.
LUTHERAN HOUR MAILBOX (Questions & Answers) for November 26, 2006
TOPIC: Are there different levels of heaven and hell?ANNOUNCER: Now, Pastor Ken Klaus answers “special questions” from our listeners. I’m Mark Eischer. And pastor, why are these questions so special?
KLAUS: For over 75 years, Mark, The Lutheran Hour has shared the Savior’s story of salvation with a sinful world. But there are other programs that Lutheran Hour Ministries offers in addition to this broadcast. One of those is called Equipping To Share.
ANNOUNCER: Equipping To Share is an interactive congregational workshop that presents timely and practical ways to help people learn how to share their faith in Christ.
KLAUS: Right. For several weeks now, we’ve been dealing with questions that came up repeatedly in those workshops.
ANNOUNCER: And we thought we were done with them.
KLAUS: We thought we were done-but we’re not. Now we’re going to deal with questions generated by our answers to the first set of questions.
ANNOUNCER: Which brings us to our topic for today. In one of our earlier discussions, we mentioned there are degrees of heaven and hell. That got quite a response from our listeners. Many said they thought heaven was heaven, hell was hell-and that was that!
KLAUS: Now, I could quote a lot of different Bible passages, but rather than doing that, let’s just zero in on one text, from Matthew 25. There, Jesus talked about the kingdom of heaven and how it was like a man who went on a long journey and entrusted his property to his servants.
ANNOUNCER: And in that story Jesus is the man that’s leaving, and we are those servants.
KLAUS: Right. The story speaks then about how the master, Jesus, returns and asks his servants for an accounting of what they had done. Two of the servants faithfully carried out the trust they had been given and were rewarded. The third didn’t. He was faithless and was punished.
ANNOUNCER: So this parable is telling us to make good use of the talents God has given us.
KLAUS: It’s certainly telling us that. But I think it’s telling us something else… something about rewards.
ANNOUNCER: Because these first two servants were rewarded according to how they used what the master had given them.
KLAUS: Exactly. Now, Mark, let me ask a few questions. First, which of those servants had anything on their own?
ANNOUNCER: Neither. Everything they had was a gift that was first entrusted to them by the master.
KLAUS: Good. Because everything we have is a gift. We are saved by grace, and not by what we’ve done. If we get into heaven, it is because of Christ: by Christ alone. Not because of anything that we have accomplished. That’s a given. Now, the next question… when did the servants receive their reward?
ANNOUNCER: They received their reward when the master returned.
KLAUS: Now, if we carry that comparison through… something which isn’t always wise to do, let me ask: when are Christians going to be rewarded for the lives they’ve led?
ANNOUNCER: When Jesus comes back.
KLAUS: OK. Some are going to have a greater reward?
ANNOUNCER: It would seem so.
KLAUS: And a lesser reward?
ANNOUNCER: Yes.
KLAUS: But they are all going to be rewarded?
ANNOUNCER: Right. They’ll all be rewarded with a gift from the Master for which they should be grateful.
KLAUS: Absolutely. Rewards that come to us in heaven.
ANNOUNCER: Now, does the Bible ever say anything about being rewarded in the here and now?
KLAUS: Well, let me ask. Mark, do you see faithful Christians being rewarded in this life?
ANNOUNCER: Not necessarily. In fact, it often seems that Christians are the ones most persecuted here on earth.
KLAUS: Exactly. The story says the reward comes to the servants after the Master returns. Mark, when the mother of James and John asked Jesus to let her boys have the honor of sitting at His right and left hand, Jesus replied in a unique way. Jesus did not say, “Lady, there ain’t no such places.” He said, “Those places aren’t Mine to give” (Mark 10:40).
ANNOUNCER: Which implies that there are such places of honor in heaven. In other words, degrees of glory. And the same would be true of hell?
KLAUS: It would. And we’re going to be talking about that in another question and answer segment coming up soon.
ANNOUNCER: Anything else you could say about this topic of degrees of glory?
KLAUS: One thing, Mark. Wherever we are in heaven, whatever the degree of glory, we’ll be glad and perfectly happy to be there. It will not only make sense to us; but, in a perfect place-free from sin-we won’t be jealous of others and their reward. Our attention and our praise will be totally focused on Christ, the Lamb of God whose sacrifice for us made heaven a blessed reality.
ANNOUNCER: Thank you, Pastor Klaus. This has been a presentation of Lutheran Hour Ministries.
Music selections for this program:
“A Mighty Fortress” arranged by John Leavitt. Concordia Publishing House/SESAC
“Rejoice, Rejoice, Believers” From Sing With All the Saints by the Children’s Choirs of St. Paul’s Lutheran Church (© 2006 St. Paul’s Lutheran Church, Ft. Wayne, IN)
“Lo! He Comes with Clouds Descending” by Robert A. Hobby. From Hymns for All Saints (© 2005 Concordia Publishing House) Concordia Publishing House/SESAC
“Wachet auf, ruft uns die Stimme” by J.S. Bach. From Organ Dedicatory Concert by Charles Ore (© 2000 Chapel of the Cross Lutheran Church)
“Wake, Awake for Night Is Flying” by John Behnke. From For All Seasons, vol. 3 by John Behnke (© 2004 John A. Behnke) Concordia Publishing House/SESAC