Ready?

8-7-22Sermon Notes“Ready?”

This week’s Gospel passage is another warning. Last week we got the warning against living a life influenced by “all kinds of greed.” Now we are getting another warning: “Be ready!” This warning begins with advice that was given first to people who were going on a journey – and not just any journey, but the Exodus. The Israelites were told to be “dressed and ready…prepared for action at a moment’s notice.” (Ex. 12: 11). The Israelites were to eat their special meal with their traveling clothes on, so that they could drop everything and leave suddenly.

The urgency is the same in Luke 12: 35-40, but the metaphor is that of slaves waiting for their master to get back home from a particularly long wedding banquet.
35 “Be dressed for action and have your lamps lit; 36 be like those who are waiting for their master to return from the wedding banquet, so that they may open the door for him as soon as he comes and knocks. 37 Blessed are those slaves whom the master finds alert when he comes; truly I tell you, he will fasten his belt and have them sit down to eat, and he will come and serve them. 38 If he comes during the middle of the night or near dawn and finds them so, blessed are those slaves.
39 “But know this: if the owner of the house had known at what hour the thief was coming, he would not have let his house be broken into. 40 You also must be ready, for the Son of Man is coming at an hour you do not expect.”
When will the master return? We don’t know. It could be the middle of the night, or even near dawn. Be ready. That’s the point. And that point is carried over to the Son of Man coming. Jesus is coming again, and we don’t know when. Will he find us ready?
See you Sunday,
Pastor Sam