“But about that day and hour no one knows, neither the angels of heaven, nor the Son, but only the Father…Therefore you also must be ready, for the Son of Man is coming at an hour you do not expect.”
- Matthew 24:36,44
This week, people around the country are engaged in a delicate dance. Push notifications have been turned off from the various news apps that normally light up their phones throughout the day. Bookmarked websites like ESPN.com and CNN.com have been mothballed for the week. People keep their noses to the grindstone throughout the day, avoiding all distractions—all so that when they get home, they can watch a tape-delayed broadcast of Olympic events that already happened earlier in the day.
Tape-delayed sports broadcasts, once commonplace for networks, are now basically reserved for the Summer and Winter Olympics. For any other sporting event, viewers can’t or won’t tolerate it—we’ve been conditioned to assume that all sports will be televised live. Yet because of the time difference between Olympic host cities and the United States, we set our impatience aside and gather around our TVs to watch a network broadcast in primetime like it’s 1985. After all, the Olympics are worth the wait.
There aren’t a lot of things for which we’re willing to show that kind of patience, certainly not to the level of making special accommodations. But for centuries now, the church has—with varying degrees of patience—been awaiting the Day of the Lord, when Christ will return to judge the living and the dead and make all things new. And that anticipation is expected to impact the way we live—we are called to “be ready” for that day.
Does that mean being able to predict when it will come? Not according to Jesus, who said the hour will be one we do not expect. Does it mean setting our lives to the side and devoting all our attention to the wait, like a child staring at their alarm clock on Christmas morning? Not unless all the New Testament commands about service, worship, evangelism, etc. are meant to be suspended.
Rather, being ready means living for eternity now, living as new creations today. It means our ethics are based in the gospel instead of situational relativity. It means we worship in spirit and in truth rather than in selfishness and theory. It means we give Jesus our whole hearts, not just the occasional Sunday morning.
Jesus is coming back, and soon. So get ready for that day—he’s worth the wait.
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