Jude 14,15

Zechariah 14:4,5

Mark 13:32 – 37

Matthew 24:29 – 31

What do these verses tell us about the return of Christ?

In what way do the passages describe the need to be ready?

What actions accompany those who believe in and are prepared for His coming?

What is the Spirit showing us about the Church or ourselves regarding our need to live awake?

The return of Christ is often far from my mind. I am not one who speculates on whether the conditions I see now are indeed signs of his imminent coming. I am content to believe that He will come when He will come. But could I be missing out on what the many scriptures about His return are intended to elicit? Might the teachings on Jesus’ return have been given to us  to awaken us with hopeful anticipation? The world as we know it will not continue on indefinitely. Jesus is coming. He emphatically states, “Surely, I am coming.” 

Mark 13:32 – 37 is one of the places where Jesus describes his departure as being like a man going on a journey who leaves his servants in charge, each with their jobs to do.  In this short parable he tells us three times that we do not know when the man, the master, who represents Jesus, will return. Verse 32 begins by saying, “Concerning the day and the hour, so one knows.” Verse 33 says, “For you do not know when the time will come.” Verse 35 repeats, “for you do not know when the master of the house will come.”

However, the point of the parable is not to just shrug one’s shoulders and ignore the reality of His return. Rather, three times Mark couples the words that we do not know when He is coming with words that indicate the desired response, keep awake. Verse 33 says, “Be on guard, keep awake.” Verse 35 repeats, “Therefore, stay awake.” And the parable concludes with verse 37, “What I say to you, (Peter, James, Andrew and John) I say to all: Stay awake!”

This parable is one of many places in scripture that links Jesus’ promised return with our need to stay awake. However, we also learn in other parts of scripture that remaining alert is difficult. I can relate. The anticipation of His return dulls as time goes by, it dulls as I am consumed with the here and now, it dulls as I find my satisfaction in the comforts and pleasures of this world. I recently read an account of a couple that had escaped to the United States from a country that imprisons those who promote Christ and His kingdom. In the United States they were free to worship, free to express their faith, free from the fear of persecution. However after a year, the wife of the couple begged her husband that they return to the land from which they had fled. She explained, “There is some kind of Satanic lullaby in this country and the Christians here are sleepy. I am afraid because I myself am beginning to get sleepy too.” For her the prospect of becoming dull and drowsy was more terrifying than imprisonment. Jesus is returning and she wants to be living fully engaged as His disciple.

Perhaps the shaking that we have experienced over the past years is meant to arouse us out of our slumber. Isa. 52 is a summons to a people who may have succumbed to the lullaby.

“”Awake, awake! Put on strength, put on your beautiful garments.”

“Shake yourself from the dust and arise!… loose the bonds from your neck.”

“The voice of the watchmen, they lift up their voice. Together they sing for joy, for eye to eye they see the return of the Lord to Zion.”

Depart, depart, go out from there! Touch no unclean thing. Go out from the midst of her you who bear the vessels of the Lord.” (Isa. 52:1,2,8,11)

One hears the urgency of Isaiah’s appeal to slumbering or drowsy people. Awake, awake! The time is now to live as He intends for His people to live. I believed that Isaiah’s appeal to apathetic, indifferent Israel could easily apply to the church today. Wake up! What do awakened people look like?

These studies are an exploration of those attributes and actions that accompany those who are spiritually awake. They are an invitation to allow the Holy Spirit to show us where we might have succumbed to the lullaby so that He can lead us to live fully to please and honor Him with no regrets at His coming.