Keep alert
Luke 21:34-36
34 ‘Be on guard so that your hearts are not weighed down with dissipation and drunkenness and the worries of this life, and that day does not catch you unexpectedly, 35 like a trap. For it will come upon all who live on the face of the whole earth. 36 Be alert at all times, praying that you may have the strength to escape all these things that will take place, and to stand before the Son of Man.’
Jesus’ sermon (Luke 21:8-36) ends with the passage we read today as he gives additional instructions on how Christians are to live.
The fundamental challenge is where are people putting their attention. In the things of this world – or the things that God is doing in the world that matters. Just as with Luke’s introduction of John the Baptist in Luke 3, it was not the powers of the government nor the elite of the religious world that were worthy of our attention. In this passage it is the pleasures of this world, and the worries about the stuff of this world that are the threat to staying focussed on what really matters. The distractions of pleasure and worry are constant threats to staying alert to the things of God.
Staying alert to what God is doing requires two things of us. First, that we are living in expectation that the reign of God is on its way. If we reach the point where we think God’s reign is not going to take place, then we stop paying attention to what God is doing in the world. In order to keep alert to the signs of the reign of God kingdom we need to believe that God is still working. We have to have hope that God is at work.
Second, we need to be alert, for the signs of the kingdom’s growth will seem insignificant. Just as the mustard seed is incredibly small and insignificant, but in Jesus’ words is a picture of the kingdom of God. So the signs of the reign of God beginning to grow in our world will likely seem like nothing. Only those who are alert, watching and waiting in expectation will see the signs of the kingdom beginning to grow. Being alert in this way is exhausting work, we are called to pray that the Spirit will give us the stamina to stay alert.
PRAYER:
God of hope, grant that we would live in the expectation of your kingdom’s full arrival in our world. Keep us awake and alert to the signs of your kingdom’s growth in our community, in our neighbourhood, in our families, and in us. In Jesus’s name. Amen.