Therefore keep watch because you do not know when the owner of the house will come back — whether in the evening, or at midnight, or when the rooster crows, or at dawn. If he comes suddenly, do not let him find you sleeping. What I say to you, I say to everyone: ‘Watch!’” (Mark 13:35-37).

When you see the word “therefore,” you always need to ask, “What is it there for?”

In this instance, it connects the whole of Jesus’ discourse about the future, given on the Mount of Olives three days before His death, with the practical action His disciples must take. Jesus used the illustration of the owner going away and leaving his house in the care of his servants.

Jesus is the owner, and we are the servants. We have two responsibilities: to be “in charge” (verse 34) — that is, to take care of the Master’s business — and to “Watch!” Five times in verses 33 through 37, Jesus admonished us to wakefulness: “Be on guard” and “be alert” each occurs once, with commands to keep watch occurring three times.

Notice that the instruction to watch doesn’t occur in the daytime. The four periods of time are all at night when we are most likely to fall asleep: evening, midnight, rooster crow and dawn. They are all the heavy sleep periods when it is most natural not to be awake.

Simply put, Jesus was saying to us that there are going to be times in life when it is dark. You can’t see clearly. You are surrounded by trouble: heartbreak, loss, despair, discouragement, depression, illness, adversity, financial need or ruin, or persecution. All you can see is the darkness of your situation. The temptation for you will be to give up, to forget that the Owner is returning and we must, even in our most desperate moments, keep watch.

We must be ready to meet Jesus at any moment, whether through His return or our going to meet Him.

In watching for Christ’s return, we are keeping the lights on in our own lives. We are making His house — our bodies, families, places of work and worship, “for in him we live and move and have our being” (Acts 17:28) — an attractive place for Jesus.

We want our lives to be ones where He makes himself at home. The “dark” represents those moments when we have no sense of His presence, when we are most likely to sin or act in ways that don’t bring honor to Him.

He wants to return to a “home” that is prepared for Him, a home that when He returns doesn’t have to keep the door shut and the occupant saying, “Wait outside while I clean up some things and clear away the clutter.”

We must be ready to meet Jesus at any moment, whether through His return or our going to meet Him.

So, given the five times in these short verses that Jesus instructed us to be alert, how do we watch? The expanded version of the Olivet Discourse in Matthew’s gospel gives four ways:

1. Don’t mistreat others for whom we have responsibility. We don’t have a license to abuse people (24:15-51).

2. Be ready for Him to return at a moment’s notice. We won’t have time to make wrongs right; therefore, we must live with a clear conscience (25:1-13).

3. Watchfulness doesn’t mean idleness. We are to plan and work as though we had a lifetime of service (25:14-30).

4. Watchfulness means caring with compassion for fellow believers and for those who suffer (25:31-46).

Jesus’ entire teaching on the future bids us to practical service rather than prophetic speculation.

A Prayer
Lord Jesus, my desire is to be ready if You should come for me today.

This article is adapted with permission from George O. Wood, Fearless: How Jesus Changes Everything (Springfield, MO: Vital Resources, 2015).

See also part 1 and part 2 in this series.