Mark 13:24-37

When did Christmas become synonymous with SPENDING?

BE watchful for the BEST DEALS on flat-screen televisions, for they will surely “come and go” and will “be like a thief in the night.” THEREFORE: Keep awake!

And the peace and the heavenly aroma of “a peppermint mocha from Starbucks” will be with you, for they will stay open even during a global pandemic to support your caffeine addiction. Essential workers, we call them. Keep awake!

For you neither KNOW the DAY or the HOUR when YOUR Lord will return. Keep awake!

For Black Friday now begins even earlier due to COVID-19, a whole week earlier. Keep Awake because Cyber Monday is coming…don’t forget to shop locally! The best deals of the year are just around the corner… Keep awake!

This “command” that Jesus gave as recorded in Mark’s Gospel, is echoed throughout the other gospels and is also found in a lot of early Christian writings.

Stay awake! It almost becomes a MANTRA. The mantra speaks to the “expectation-and-watchfulness-as- believers-awaited-the-imminent-second-coming-of-Jesus.

Through these words, writers are telling Christians EVERYWHERE to KEEP AWAKE and BE ALERT for the return of the Lord, “a theme” that was addressed by many of the parables of Jesus.

THE COMMAND to keep awake remains one of the FEW commands of Jesus that WE (in particular) knowingly or unknowingly still manage to keep.

We keep awake as much as possible—quick…grab an energy drink or two!

We roll. We toss. We look at the clock.

We toss some more. We rearrange the pillow and coverings… We play all sorts of mental mind games…

Statistics from the CDC show about one-third of Americans are “sleep-deprived” and at least “one-third” report UNINTENTIONALLY falling asleep at some point during the day.

We are exhausted people! Tired people. Fatigued people. And “the gospel,” says, Keep awake!

Even the Publishers of our Bulletin covers – blast it across the front of the bulletin like-the-newest-latest-and-greatest-headline-ever. And it is even BOLD PRINT. KEEP AWAKE! Hey, no problem.

WE hear every door slam. Every car alarm. Every voice outside our window or on our block. The siren that echos through the darkness…and split the night…Oh, do we EVER keep awake!

WE need to keep awake as we work longer hours for less – while trying to balance our family lives and assorted other activities.

Thankfully, there are whole industries devoted to keeping us awake, and the success of coffee shops, energy drinks, and NOW even caffeinated water are all based on the need to-keep-overworked- sleep-deprived-people-AWAKE, alert, producing, and consuming to keep our economy humming…along.

So work at HOME, they say, it will be fun!

TEACH your kids at home, it will be fun!

Just MAKE SURE, you still do everything you did in 40 hours at the workplace…and MORE.

And now there are computers, robots, and outsourcing to keep pace with. Keep awake!

Nowhere, of course, is this “DEVOTION to CONSUMPTION” and keeping awake more apparent than during the week of “Black Friday, Small Business Saturday and CYBER MONDAY” when we will do WHATEVER IS necessary for CHEAP TOYS and OVERPRICED electronics at hours and times … when-sane-people-would-normally-be-snug-in-their-beds-with-visions-of-sugarplums-dancing-in their-heads…

Besides, now we can stay awake and work from home…and be on or near or at the computer or PHONE day and night 24/7.

You cannot miss the next Zoom Meeting. The next Zoom Parent/Teacher Conference. The next video-Dr. appointment. You have to be awake for that online class, too! Keep awake! Oh, we know a thing or two about staying awake…don’t we?

We are exhausted people! Tired people. Fatigued people. And “the gospel,” says, Keep awake! Monday is coming…don’t forget to shop locally! The best deals of the year are just around the corner… Keep awake!

And we still need time to SURF the NET MINDLESSLY, check our work e-mail from home while we give our children baths, walk the dog or empty the litter boxes or put up the tree because Christmas is surely coming…

We keep awake, keep working, keep thinking, keep consuming as much and as quickly as possible because you never know when “stuff” will be THIS CHEAP again.

But the command of Jesus isn’t to keep awake and keep SPENDING or keep SHOPPING. Rather it is to keep awake. And to WAIT. And WAIT. And to WAIT some more. This is the “discipline of Advent.” We are to wait on the Lord, either until he COMES, or he CALLS us by NAME or we GREET him again as the Babe of Bethlehem. It is NOT about spending at all!