Jesus says today: “Stay awake!” Lord knows in our world today we don’t have any trouble keeping awake — coffee shops on every corner, soft drink machines everywhere, caffeinated confections offered and accepted as if they were the nectar of the gods, not to mention the variety of coffee mugs and travel mugs or fancy coffee machines that we can buy for our homes.
But what Jesus seems to say today about staying awake doesn’t seem to require an espresso. Be awake for God. Notice God. Notice the opportunities. We are to stay awake to those opportunities so that we can seize them, and we can respond to them because there are so many people right now who need to feel God’s healing touch, and for many of them there doesn’t seem to be much time. Their lives are lessened, shortened, and diminished by poverty, ill health, loneliness, mental illness, hunger, and incarceration.
The English writer C.S. Lewis in his autobiography recounts the night he, an adult convert to Christianity, first knelt and admitted to himself and confessed to God his faith in Christ. He knelt, he said, because he realized that the “hardness of God is kinder than the softness of men, and His compulsion is our liberation.” That is the same reason Peter chose to remain with Jesus even after Jesus’ words confused and upset him. Our commitments, our actions, our charity, and our moral actions, much more so than our thoughts and feelings, determine whether we believe or not. During our lives, we can be living a commitment half-asleep that at times does not make sense but knowing that at a deeper place inside of us that, for us, real life depends on staying the course.
So may God keep us awake. Right now. May we embrace our commitment to steadfastness, gazing at those who are hungry and thirsty for God’s touch, and help them to not give up. The time is short for us to respond to the one standing right in front of us. Let us love as God loves now, today.
God bless! Have a wonderful week!