“But about that day or hour no one knows, not even the angels in heaven, nor the Son, but only the Father” (13:32).  Which doesn’t stop people from speculating or giving the impression that they know a little more than the rest of us who apparently just haven’t cared enough or taken Jesus seriously enough to delve into the cryptography of Scripture.  Eschatology—that’s the theological term for the study of the end, the last things—Revelation stuff.  Yet here is Jesus saying, if even I don’t know the day and hour, there isn’t much point in trying to put your finger on it.

But the conviction of that day’s coming can be a strong inducement to repent now, before it’s too late.  And it is.  That day is on the way.  It has been from the first second of creation, from the moment Christ breathed his last breath on the Cross; the end has been on its way from the first new breath Jesus drew deep into his lungs at his resurrection.  The end is assured, even if we aren’t sure about the exact day and time.  Must we be?  Must we know for sure, in order to be faithful, effective disciples?  To my ears, Jesus gives his answer, and it is a definite No.

Beloved, God gives every disciple more than enough time to live his or her discipleship in a faithful, fruitful way; our ongoing grief is that we don’t seem to have lived our discipleship with much consistency or success.  But God will judge; we mustn’t become preoccupied with our failures and faults; we mustn’t get bogged down in self-pity when the going gets difficult.  In every season and every situation, God provides grace to be a faithful disciple.  Let us avail ourselves of that grace, constantly, gratefully.

Do we fall short, woefully short?  Yes, of course!  And we have an Advocate and Friend: Jesus, who speaks up for us.  Jesus never makes excuses for us; he never rationalizes or spins our sad, bad choices.  Instead, he asks the Father to be patient, and this is just what it pleases the Father to do, because He has sent the Spirit, and the Spirit is at work.  The Spirit does not rationalize our bad, sad choices, or our slavish, spineless deference to the wicked ways of this impious, impenitent world.  The Spirit is at work within each of us to change us, to reshape and reform us, to align us with God’s Word so that we live more and more God’s way.  All people live obedient to their god—whatever that god may be.  God is making Himself our God, in fact and action, not just by word of mouth.  We all already have more than enough meaningless membership cards, lying around here and there.  God wants our belonging to Him in Christ to mean something, something big, beautiful, and blessed—and not just for ourselves.

As Jesus nears the end of his time on this earth, he has one clear message for those following him: “Be on guard!  Be alert!  You do not know when that time will come” (13:33).  To be alert and on guard is to live faith actively.  What is inactive faith?  You know, in our denomination at one time, for decades, we had a category of church membership called inactive membership.  What could that be?  This was the category where we so very kindly and quietly put those whom no-one had seen in church for years, who had had nothing to do with the church for years, but it was still just too painful for some who needed to be kept happy to accept the fact and move on.  Who wants to hurt anyone’s feelings?  “What do you mean I’m no longer a member of the congregation?!  Why, I was just fixin’ to come last Sunday!!”  Beloved, they’re not coming back.  They have already left.  Let’s instead welcome in and get to know those who are newest here, who are finding us and wanting to be here.  Why do we insist on clinging to those who don’t want to be here?

Disciples live their life everyday as they live faith every day.  We are growing towards a point when we can each say, ‘What other could I do?’  We are being reshaped, reformed in such a way that we live our faith as easily, normally, as we live our life.  Before, the guiding force in our life—the supreme value—was not God.  I mean, we each had a god, everyone has a god, but the god we had was not God as He reveals Himself through Scripture.  Self is our default god: a pantheon of drives, desires, appetites, unruly instincts—pleasure, power, impulse, ease, convenience, autonomy.  Autonomy is a sort of fancy word that comes to us from Greek—I guess they knew something about it; the word means a law unto oneself.  In other words, autonomy is behavior and belief that say I will determine for myself what is good and bad, for me, true and false, for me, right and wrong, for me.  That presumes a lot of wisdom, but it isn’t typically wisdom or the pursuit of it that governs such thinking and living.  What drives such living is our old foe, Sin: life without reference to God.  We live our lives every day: we must!  For whom are we living?

Jesus illustrates his meaning through a parable.  This readiness, this watchfulness, this active living by faith and for faith, “It’s like a man going away: He leaves his house and puts his servants in charge, each with their assigned task, and tells the one at the door to keep watch.  Therefore keep watch because you do not know when the owner of the house will come back—whether in the evening, or at midnight, or when the rooster crows, or at dawn.  If he comes suddenly, do not let him find you sleeping” (13:34-36), or, I might add, off doing something else:  Oh, I only stepped away for a minute!  Unprepared.  Not ready.  Been there!

Different servants have different tasks, each as assigned by the master of the house.  Paul speaks of this memorably on various occasions.  The house, beloved, is not the world but the Church: God knows the world will go its own way, but the servants in the house are to keep the house in order and ready for the Master, for when he returns.  He will return.  If you’ll recall, while he was teaching in the temple, Jesus told a parable about a vineyard that had been left in the care of tenants.  The master has expectations, reasonable expectations, for what he will find upon his promised, sure return.  We keep things ready, in expectation of his arrival.

It seems noteworthy that Jesus, in exhorting his faithful to live faithfully, reminds them that the owner, the Master, could return “in the evening, or at midnight, or when the rooster crows, or at dawn.”  Who comes and knocks in the darkness, or even before dawn’s first light?  Some of you, I know, are night owls, but as for me, at midnight, I’m usually very much asleep and loving it.  We also understand that Jesus isn’t talking about the sleep our bodies need; he’s talking about the unconsciousness, the lack of conscientiousness, that our souls are to avoid: complacency, hypocrisy, lack of motivation, lack of interest, preoccupation with the toys and temptations always on offer around us in this world.  We’ve all done some sleepwalking, that way.

It’s that biblical treasury of practical wisdom for daily living, Proverbs, that strongly cautions us against such insubstantial living: “How long will you lie there, you sluggard?  When will you get up from your sleep?  A little sleep, a little slumber, a little folding of the hands to rest—and poverty will come on you like a thief and scarcity like an armed man” (Prov 6:9-11).  To lose our material possessions seems terrifying enough: now consider the spiritual significance of the proverb.  What poverty is poorer than condemnation, and what riches more abundant than salvation?  Don’t take salvation for granted, as something that requires nothing further from you than to put it in your back pocket or purse and do as you like, but live your gratitude daily, as a joy and blessing.  Also in Proverbs, we hear that “He who gathers crops in summer is a prudent son, but he who sleeps during harvest is a disgraceful son” (Prov 10:5).  Beloved, for disciples every day is harvest.  Rejoice in the spiritual fruit God provides, that He makes it possible to grow in you: share it; call others into this abundance, invite them, encourage them.  Winter comes, when we no longer labor in the fields.

Finally, we also read, “Do not love sleep or you will grow poor; stay awake and you will have food to spare” (Prov 20:13).  Be on your guard; be alert, conscious and conscientious.  Keep the house in order—deferred maintenance is rarely cheap maintenance.  There is abundance in application: let each of us and all of us together apply ourselves to living abundantly, faithfully.  What such living looks like I don’t need to itemize or illustrate: we see it in action as we read our Bibles prayerfully and pay prayerful attention to how Jesus lived among us.  Let us go and do likewise, daily; this is to be awake and watchful in the faith.