Keep Awake

“But about that day and hour no one knows, neither the angels of heaven, nor the Son, but only the Father…. Therefore you also must be ready, for the Son of Man is coming at an unexpected hour” [Matthew 24:36, 44].

The First Sunday of Advent always catches us off guard. Many of us expect Bethlehem, shepherds, angels announcing good news. Instead, the Lectionary (Year A) hands us Matthew 24:36-44—Jesus speaking not about his first coming but his second. No manger here, no gentle Mary cradling an infant. Just stark apocalyptic warning: the Son of Man is coming at an unexpected hour. Keep awake. Be ready.

It’s jarring, especially when secular society is already three weeks into Christmas. The trees are up, multiple Black Fridays have come and gone, holiday parties fill the calendar. We’re supposed to be feeling warm and nostalgic, not vigilant and alert. But that’s precisely why the church gives us this text to begin Advent. Before we domesticate the incarnation into sentiment, before we reduce God’s coming to candlelight services and gingerbread, Jesus reminds us: the Christ child grew up to announce his return. The kingdom he inaugurated at Bethlehem is still breaking in, still demanding our attention, still coming “like a thief in the night.”

Jesus uses the flood as his analogy. In Noah’s day, people were eating and drinking, marrying and giving in marriage, going about their ordinary lives. “They knew nothing until the flood came and swept them all away” [Matthew 24:39]. Then he adds those puzzling lines: “Two will be in the field; one will be taken and one will be left. Two women will be grinding meal together; one will be taken and one will be left” [24:40-41].

For decades, many have read these verses as describing a moment when faithful Christians are plucked from earth to heaven while others are “left behind.” But that reading gets things backwards. In Noah’s day, being swept away wasn’t rescue—it was doom. Noah’s family wasn’t taken; they were left behind in the ark. In first-century Palestine, being “taken” by Roman authorities wasn’t deliverance—it was arrest, imprisonment, possibly execution. Being left behind meant escape. Jesus’ actual point: “About that day and hour no one knows.” [24:36]. This should have ended all attempts at theological weather forecasting. But we want to know when, and wanting to know often becomes a way to avoid what Jesus actually asks: readiness.

If I can convince myself that the end is imminent, I can justify present withdrawal—why work for justice or build for the future if it’s all about to end? Or conversely, if I can determine we’re not quite there yet, I can defer serious discipleship until some future crisis when I’ll really need to be ready. Both moves—“it’s almost here, so hunker down” or “we’ve got time, so relax”—evade Jesus’ demand for perpetual readiness.

But what does readiness actually look like?

Matthew himself shows us. Just four chapters after our text, in Matthew 28:1-10, two women go to the tomb at dawn on the third day after Jesus’ crucifixion. Matthew tells us they are Mary Magdalene and “the other Mary”—two of the women who had followed Jesus from Galilee, who stood at a distance during his execution, who witnessed where he was buried.

Jesus had told them he would rise on the third day. So they went to the tomb at dawn—not later that morning, not whenever convenient, but at the earliest possible moment the “third day” could reasonably mean. They didn’t calculate whether he meant exactly 72 hours or debate the precise timing. They simply positioned themselves where they could see what God was doing.

They were watching. They were ready.

The angel who rolled away the stone knew why they’d come: “I know that you are looking for Jesus who was crucified” [28:5]. They’d taken Jesus at his word about resurrection, so they showed up to witness it. And they were rewarded with the empty tomb and, moments later, an encounter with the risen Lord himself.

This is what “keep awake” means. This is what “be ready” looks like. Not anxious scanning of the horizon for signs to decode. Not construction of elaborate end-times schemas. But eager attentiveness—positioning yourself where Christ said he’d be, trusting his word, showing up at dawn.

The two Marys embody another crucial characteristic: readiness that works whether Christ comes immediately or after long delay. They went early, yes—but they’d also been faithful followers through the long, terrible hours of crucifixion and burial. They didn’t just show up for the spectacular moment. They’d been present through the suffering.

We need to be ready for Christ’s immediate return and for a long wait. History shows what happens when faith is built entirely around immediate expectation. When Christ doesn’t return on our timeline—next week, next year, or as it turns out, two millennia later—what happens to faith formed around imminent crisis?

Jesus himself warns about this in the parable of the ten bridesmaids, which comes just after this week’s Gospel text. The bridegroom is delayed. Five wise bridesmaids brought extra oil—they were prepared not just for his arrival but for a long wait. The foolish ones had enough oil for immediate arrival, but not for endurance.

We need both. Genuine readiness as if Christ could return today. And lives of faithfulness that can sustain decades or lifetimes of waiting. Not either/or, but both/and.

There’s a precedent for this even in the Old Testament. When the Hebrews were carried off to Babylonian exile, they wanted to know when they’d return to Jerusalem. False prophets told them “soon, very soon!” But Jeremiah sent them a letter: seventy years, he told them. Multiple generations. So don’t just wait passively. Build houses and live in them. Plant gardens. Have children. Seek the welfare of the city where you’re exiled, “for in its welfare you will find your welfare” [Jeremiah 29:7].

Hope for return, yes. But live faithfully in the present. Because present faithfulness is readiness.

The two Marys at the tomb. The exiles building houses in Babylon. Both show us that readiness isn’t withdrawal from ordinary life or fevered speculation about timelines. It’s faithful presence—working, watching, positioned where we might encounter the God who keeps breaking into our world.

Jesus says the coming of the Son of Man will be like a thief in the night [24:43]. The image is deliberately jarring, even shocking. Christ as thief? But that’s the point—pay attention. So much rests on being awake, on knowing what really matters as you go about your days.

“Keep awake therefore, for you do not know on what day your Lord is coming” [24:42]. In the midst of the eating and drinking, the marrying and giving in marriage, the Christmas preparations and parties and shopping—where do we position ourselves to watch for Christ’s coming?

Matthew 25, which immediately follows our text, gives one answer: the Son of Man is present among the hungry, the thirsty, the stranger, the naked, the sick, the imprisoned. “Just as you did it to one of the least of these who are members of my family, you did it to me” [25:40]. That’s one place to watch.

The two Marys found another: they went where Jesus said he’d be. They took him at his word and showed up.

What does that mean for us this Advent? We don’t know when Christ will return. We don’t know whether it will be in our lifetime or our great-grandchildren will still be watching. The text won’t give us the certainty we crave about timelines and signs.

It only asks: Are you ready? Are you watching?

The two Marys went to the tomb at dawn. They didn’t have all the answers. They just showed up where Christ said he would be.

I think that’s all readiness ever is.