For Sunday, November 30, 2014 – Mark 13:24-37
In a continual state of high alert, we live much of our days. We are told, keep your wits about you. If you notice any suspicious person or activity, alert the authorities without delay. No one knows the day of our reckoning. Beware. Keep awake. In this passage, it sounds like Jesus might be in collusion. Is he suggesting that obedience to him demands the anxiety of hyper-vigilance? Does he require, in addition to the ordinary tasks of waiting, that we also keep watch for the sun and moon to darken and the stars to fall?
How differently we experience different kinds of waiting. Awaiting the return of a loved one, or a longed-for new beginning, or a world that works better for everyone, these we can imagine with anticipation and heartfelt longing. Come, Lord Jesus! Quite different they are from the scratching anxiety that comes from dreading what lies ahead—impending surgery, a broken heart, the recognition of failure. Dread sometimes gets attached to Jesus. Fear of ourselves leads us to fear him, and to fear the ‘new day’ he heralds. We keep watch for his return, not because he is our saving grace, the love of our life, but because we dread his disappointment. Hovering in some of us is the fear that it might never be possible to live up to the standard of his love.
The tension between expectant love and hyper-vigilant fear can imprison us in a dark cell of doubt. Oh, we learn to wear a variety of masks, to pretend that all is well with our souls, while the torture squad within stretches us tight between fear and love. Just naming it aloud can be enough to propel us toward liberation. None of us wants to be afraid, chooses it as a life goal, yet we often turn from the bracing wind of our own awakening. We are not alone. Jesus says, the tree bears its fruit, and the watchman keeps watch. We, too, can admit to each other who we are. The fruit of our true selves even yet can emerge. We sleepers can awake. Even our anxieties about Jesus can be brought into the light and catapult us into new life.
