Watch and Pray
Be careful, or your hearts will be weighed down with carousing, drunkenness and the anxieties of life, and that day will close on you suddenly like a trap. For it will come on all those who live on the face of the whole earth. Be always on the watch, and pray that you may be able to escape all that is about to happen, and that you may be able to stand before the Son of Man.
- Luke 21:34-36
Are you weighed down with the anxieties of life? It would not be surprising—given all that has gone on this year, and is still going on. From the coronavirus pandemic, to the economic disaster of the spring lockdown, the summer riots, this fall’s contested election, and the current resurgence of Covid, who isn’t weighed down?
Jesus admonition may have something to say to us. It comes at the end of some of his teaching in Luke where he tells of the signs of trouble ahead: “Nation will rise against nation, and kingdom against kingdom. There will be great earthquakes, famines and pestilences in various places, and fearful events and great signs from heaven” (v11). Much of the rest of the chapter contains his warnings that his followers will find trouble in this life. “Everyone will hate you because of me” (v17). But he tells them—and us—to watch and pray.
The church season of Advent is a season of waiting—and watching and praying. It is a reminder not only of the Savior’s first advent, two thousand years ago, but also a reminder that he will come again, to set things right. Advent helps us stay attuned to Jesus’ “words that will never pass away” (v33) rather than the distractions of this life. Trusting in him, it gives us the opportunity to look forward in hope and expectation rather than in fear and frustration. Advent reminds us that a better world will break through at any time, and that we need to be careful and to watch for that day.
We need Christ to come. He is coming—in a few weeks, at Christmas, and later, a final time, of which we know not the hour. He also comes every Sunday, in Word and Sacrament. When we encounter him there, in worship, we are shaped and nourished by the Good News. This prepares us to stand before him on the last day. When we pray through him to the Father in the Spirit, we are assured that on that day he will present us to the Father, blameless, as his co-heirs.
This year has shown us that the anxieties of life will certainly come. It is even more sure and certain that the Lord is returning to set things right. Watch, and pray.
O come, thou branch of Jesse’s stem
unto thine own and rescue them!
From depths of hell your people save,
and give them victory o’er the grave.
~Pastor Matt