“Therefore, keep alert, because you don’t know the day or the hour.”
Matthew 25:13 CEB
“Life is too short, stay awake” might be the moral behind this parable told by Jesus. Be prepared, don’t wait to the last minute, don’t put off tomorrow what you can do today, or you may end up like the foolish bridesmaids and miss the party. Sounds like advice your mother would give you. Yet this is the advice that Jesus is giving. The last words of the parable are the punch lines or the moral. Jesus says, “Therefore keep watch, because you do not know the day or the hour.”
Many scholars believe that Jesus is making references to the end times – the end of the world. He's talking about his own return in glory at the end of all time. Yet there is more, there is something more engaging for our lives than simply to be prepared because Jesus is coming again. There are opportunities that come our way in life that do not come again. There are opportunities for us to reach out and make a difference in someone else’s life that may be here once and then gone.
There are moments that occur that do not recur. There are moments where God intrudes in our lives in a powerful way, yet often only in a momentary or fleeting way that if we are not attuned to His presence, it will disappear. We must be ready.
We try to reassure ourselves with “There will always be a tomorrow.” But life cannot be endlessly deferred. There are opportunities that come to us that don’t come again.
So, we are to be alert, to watch, to be prepared, to be attuned to the movement of God’s spirit in our life. For the time in which we live at this moment may be the time for a decision, a commitment, an action. Therefore, keep alert.