Sunday Meditation: Stay Awake!

This Sunday we start the new liturgical calendar, and we are now back to Year A in the lectionary cycle, the year emphasizing the Gospel of Matthew.  Paradoxically we start with the end of the Gospel.

 

Jesus said to his disciples:

"As it was in the days of Noah,

so it will be at the coming of the Son of Man.

In those days before the flood,

they were eating and drinking,

marrying and giving in marriage,

up to the day that Noah entered the ark.

They did not know until the flood came and carried them all away.

So will it be also at the coming of the Son of Man.

Two men will be out in the field;

one will be taken, and one will be left.

Two women will be grinding at the mill;

one will be taken, and one will be left.

Therefore, stay awake!

For you do not know on which day your Lord will come.

Be sure of this: if the master of the house

had known the hour of night when the thief was coming,

he would have stayed awake

and not let his house be broken into.

So too, you also must be prepared,

for at an hour you do not expect, the Son of Man will come."

~Mt 24:37-44

 

I always love that “Stay awake” exhortation.  I imagine one staying up all night and watching the dark, night sky waiting for Christ’s second coming. 

These Fr. Geoffrey Plant videos expounding the Gospel readings are wonderful.  He is so thorough.  I don’t know anything about him except that he’s from Australia.  Here he is on this Gospel reading.

 

So will you be the one taken or the one left?