Saturday, November 29, 2014

Mark 13:35-37

“Therefore, keep awake—for you do not know when the master of the house will come, in the evening, or at midnight, or at cockcrow, or at dawn, or else he may find you asleep when he comes suddenly. And what I say to you I say to all: Keep awake.’

Stay awake

 

 Stay awake. Christ is coming ... to you.

The deep cry of our hearts is to know Christ coming to us, touching, filling us with the love that makes us alive, so that no matter our condition--joy or struggle, strength or illness--we know we are safe and well in the Love who comes to each of us … again and again … to join himself with us … that we might have his light and life … in ourselves.

Jesus’ call to stay awake is grace, an invitation to welcome Christ in all the ways he comes to us.

The business of life, the rush of this season, lulls us to sleep even as it exhausts us. We fall utterly unconscious to what is happening in our souls. What am I thinking? Feeling? What is giving me real life and joy; what is stealing it from me?

We don’t know unless we struggle to stay awake through prayer and love. These two keep us awake.

We must listen to our needs and the needs of our wounded world and pray, “Come Lord Jesus,” responding with generosity to the needs of God’s hungry and suffering ones in the world.

And we must cultivate love for life, love for God’s world, love for others next door or a world away. Love begins with gratitude, by saying “thank you” every single day for the blessings our life, focusing on the graces you have received … not on what we don’t have or imagine we must have to be happy.

And if you cannot find anything for which to be grateful, I invite you to take your pulse.

Stay awake. Christ is coming to you.

This month … find places of silence away from the distractions of work and entertainment.Stand in silence under the night sky, or look into the clear cobalt skies of winter afternoons and marvel at creation.

Listen to those who speak to you without worrying about what to say next. Read a favorite passage or book that opens you to the mystery of God’s love. Sit and talk, share a drink, a thought, a memory with someone who truly cherishes you. Listen to music that opens your soul.

Stay awake. Receive each day and moment that comes without insisting that it be like yesterday or anticipating all the ways tomorrow might be better. 

Stay open and try with all your might to love each day, knowing … that amid all that happens … Christ who is Love … is coming to you.

Light a candle … and know.

Pr. David L. Miller