The Gospel describes how Christians are to be like bridesmaids in their readiness to welcome the return of the bridegroom. Be vigilant. Appropriately, the question to ask oneself is: Am I ready to meet the Lord now? Am I ready to meet Him either at His Second Coming or at the hour of my own death?The answer is most probably no. Firstly, because I still have life to live. Our notion of life is that death should only come after a long and fruitful life. That is why we speak of living to a ripe old age and also in the pursuit of life, liberty and happiness, when life is cut short, we call it a “tragic” death. Secondly, I am not ready because I live in a world of uncertainty. The uncertainty of life causes me to search for meaning. In this quest, the thought of death is set aside as we pursue fulfilment in life. Fulfilment is thought of in terms of what is accomplished: “my work is done, my vision is realised, my objective is met, there is nothing to worry about, and I am free from obligation”. Thirdly, I am not ready because my vision of heaven is blurred by a picture of life which is largely materialistic. Fullness of life is presented in terms of material wealth, material gain and material comfort. In fact, many of us unwittingly postpone living or we think we can only start to live when we have everything we need. Many of us are chased or haunted by the phantoms of material wealth, believing that life will take off only after we have taken the corner of wealth.
Our vision of life without death is challenged by evangelical vigilance. It means that we must be ready to stare death in the eye because death does not work according to our schedule. Like a thief in the night, it comes a knocking when we least expect it, especially when we are working hard to achieve our goals or to accomplish our objectives.
We are invited to live in a state of readiness as exemplified by a monk’s response to the impending end of the world. This monk was sweeping the floor of a monastery and when asked what he would do if he had less than an hour to live said: I’d go on sweeping the floor. That is testimony of a person’s faith in God and a testimony that his or her own life can stand up to close scrutiny. I live in such a way that I can be at any place and in any time. It is easy to live for the future, in the future but it’s hard to live for the now.
Thus, to attend to whatever duty that a person is called to at the time is what Jesus meant by being watchful servants. In the garden of Gethsemane, when Jesus returned to his disciples and found them sleeping, he warned them to "watch and pray" (Mark 14:38). To be vigilant indicates that we live in the presence of God and it implies that we become acutely attentive to the presence of God. This idea turns people away from God simply because many of us are afraid that being in the presence of God indicates that we are being kept on our toes. Even the phrase “to stand up to scrutiny” gives the uncomfortable feeling of being watched. It is bad enough that we are being watched by our neighbours, by our colleagues or even worse, being spied upon by our government. Our understanding of watchfulness is made poorer by the image of a God who is waiting to catch us unawares and waiting to punish.
But, listen to the Gospel as it says: Happy those servants whom the master finds awake when he comes. I tell you solemnly, he will put on an apron, sit them down at table and wait on them. This is our God who delights to serve us. Imagine that when our hearts are in search of God; when we live in the presence of God, God comes to serve us. Thus, being in the presence of God does not mean being kept on our toes but on the contrary should draw us more and more into a life in which we want to make things right before God. It is something instinctive in us and we silently long for this righteousness. It’s like living in such a way that we do not need to pretend and we need never to wear a mask. Unless you are a pathological or chronic liar, then lying and adding more lies to cover another lie leaves you with a feeling of dissatisfaction. We instinctively do not like to live in darkness.
Death and vigilance are friends. Because we are afraid of dying, we reject death, and as such give excuses not to be vigilant—we postpone true living [as in living in truth, living in readiness] until such time when we are “ready”. The philosopher Martin Heidegger brought out an existential truth of who we are. We are “beings unto death”. This runs counter to our accepted view of life as a journey in which one is born, grows up and then after a period of active life, slows down to enter the process of death. But according to Heidegger, we begin to die as soon as we are born. Every breath we take moves us inexorably closer to death. There is never a point in our existence where death is not a part of. Death is not alien to our existence but is in fact, built into our existential structure.
Hence, to be vigilant is to live in the shadow of death. It is not a threat. It is an invitation to walk into the presence of God because beyond the shadow of death is the light of God. We are created to see God face to face and the only way to see God is to go through the door of death. For that, we must be ready. Be vigilant.
