Saints Joseph of Arimathea and Nicodemus
Stake Awake
Today's Gospel presents to us Jesus telling his disciples to stay awake because they do not know when the son of Man will come in glory to judge the living and the dead. He compares this warning with the thief who comes to steal as a surprise without warning, otherwise if the master of the house knew that the thief is coming, he would prepare for him and catch him. In the same way will Jesus come back on the final judgement day, the day which nobody knows. This is why Jesus' message to the disciples is also our message today so that we stay awake so that that day finds us ready to enter the kingdom of heaven.
Jesus' first coming was a rescue mission - he was sent by the eternal Father in heaven to save us from the tyranny of sin, Satan, and death. Jesus' sacrificial death on the cross and his triumphant victory over the grave won pardon for us and reconciliation with our heavenly Father, and the promise of everlasting life and joy in his kingdom. The Lord Jesus told his disciples on a number of occasions that he would return again at the end of this present age - not simply to rescue us again from our enemies - but as a victor King and Lord who will vindicate all who have believed in him - by releasing us from the curse of death and condemnation and restoring for us the plan he had from the beginning of creation - a new heavens and earth for a people perfectly united with God in peace, joy, and harmony forever. This is the background to Jesus' story (parable) about the householder and the thief in the night (Matthew 24:42-51). When the Lord Jesus returns, he doesn't want to find us flirting with the enemy or worse joining forces with enemies who are opposed to God and his kingdom.
Brethren, imagine that day is today or that God reveals to you that it is tomorrow, what would you do? Would it find you worthy of entering the Kingdom of God? I know most of us would forgive all the people, go for confession, and even fast so that we make ourselves ready. Unfortunately, we don't know this day, so then how are we going to be ready for it? These are the questions we should always ask ourselves as each day passes.
The ideal response to the question about what to do if you know the day when the Lord is coming back is that you go about your day as if it were any other day. Why? Because ideally we are all living every day as if it were our last and we are daily heeding the Gospel today. We strive, every day, to “stay awake” and be ready for our Lord’s return at any moment. If we are truly embracing this gospel, then it matters not if His return is today, tomorrow, next year or many years from now.
How do we, each day, make ourselves ready? By following God's Commandments and doing the will of God in our lives. These commandments are summarised into one law of love of God and neighbour. Therefore brethren, everyday of our lives we have to spend it in love of God and neighbor, doing good things, visiting the sick, helping the needy, promoting and fighting for justice, defending the weak, clothing the naked and helping our brethren in one way or the other. When we do this we not only do them to our brethren but also to God for Jesus says whatsoever you do to the least of my brethren, that you do unto me. At the end of time, the only criteria for entering heaven will be: how did you love?
God has entrusted us with a specific mission in this world each in an individual and unique way. When we do our mission well in love and with all our efforts, we are making ourselves ready and worthy of the kingdom. And when we fail especially due to commission, omission and our stubbornness then we become like the untrustworthy servant in the Gospel who squandered all his master's properties in parties and drinking and when the master returned he was thrown out to where there is gnashing of teeth. None of us want to be like that and so we should be ready by doing our mission entrusted to us.
Like Jesus, St. Ignatius also thought it important that we face the harsh reality of death and our final reckoning. In his spiritual exercises, he suggested a contemplation of Hell where the retreatant asks for an “interior sense of the pain which the damned suffer, in order that, if, through my faults, I should forget the love of the Eternal Lord, at least the fear of the pains may help me not to come into sin” (Spiritual Exercises, #65). We conquer our fear with a confident awareness that God’s mercy is much greater when we open ourselves in preparedness for it.
Reflect today on how awake and ready are you for the last judgement day? Does it bring in you the desire to live everyday as your last day or you think it's still far? May you realise the need to live everyday as your last day and do God's mission as a way of staying awake for the last judgement day.
Let us Pray
Fill me with your Spirit Lord so that every day of my life may be lived as if it is the day of your return and help me to be a good servant of God and of His people. Amen
Be blessed
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