Thursday, February 9 (January 27), 2023

1Jn. 1:8-2:6; Mk. 13:31-14:2 

What we have yesterday heard from St. Peter’s Epistle, today we see directly in the words of Jesus: “Take ye heed, watch and pray: for ye know not when the time is… Watch ye therefore: for ye know not when the master of the house cometh, at even, or at midnight, or at the cockcrowing, or in the morning: Lest coming suddenly he find you sleeping.” [Mk. 13:33-36].  We have to watch, at every moment keep in mind that the Lord is about to come and shine as lightning from one end of the world even to the other.

Some would replace this expectation of the Lord with the expectation of death.  That’s also good, or at least acceptable as a bare minimum.  Expectation of Lord’s coming, however, is different from that of one’s own death.  The ideas are different, and feelings induced by both ideas are also different.  We expect Lord’s coming when everything will be closed with a definite, irrevocable conclusion.  After death there will continue some kind of indefinite state, while Lord’s day will determine everything forever and seal our fate with no chance for a change.

─ But I have been waiting for it!

─ Good; keep waiting to the end.

─ Won’t it poison all joys of my life?

─ No, it will not.  What it will do, it will purge your entire life of those false joys which have no right to be called joys.  You will still have a lot of joy in the Lord while expecting Him to come, and when He comes and finds you in that joy, He will praise you for it.

Read more about the author