One man brought sin, and thus death, in to the world.  And one man came to redeem and to forgive.  All sin, and so all die.  But with Christ’s redemption all can be saved.  We are all sinners, but God knows our sin and loves us all.  He will forgive our sins; all we have to do is ask.  He loves us in spite of our failings, and all we have to do is love Him back.

But we do not know the day or the hour.  We must be vigilant and aware.  God will forgive us if we ask.  But we have to ask, and we don’t know when our time is up.  We need to be always at the ready, like the servants awaiting the master’s return.  It seems like waiting would be the easy part, but it’s the being ready part that is probably difficult.  And waiting would get tiresome.  I’m sure the servants were excited at first, but as the time dragged on, even though they thought they were at the alert, they probably got distracted.  Whatever we do over and over, even good things, we get in a rut.

I’ve been grading midterms all week, and at first I was very excited about the tests.  But as I’ve gone along, reading similar variations on the same topics, I’ve become a bit distracted.  I’ve found myself thinking I was reading carefully, and then finding I had just read the same sentence over and over again.  Or I would find myself at the end of an essay but not remember how I got there or what points had been made.  I would have to focus my attention and start over fresh.

I’m afraid many people get like that.  All of the things that make us ready – church attendance, good works, prayer – can get to be a rut.  If we are just going through the motions, we are not really vigilant in our waiting.  We need to look at what we are doing to prepare, and make sure those things are fresh and meaningful.  In our attempt at vigilance, we become distracted.  Our society is big on multi-tasking, but this is something important and something that requires our full attention.  We must be like the servants eagerly awaiting their master, and we must be ready the second he appears.  This is something that deserves our attention. 

“Here I am Lord; I come to do your  will.”