Thursday, December 1: Scripture – Matthew 24: 40-44
40 Then two will be in the field; one will be taken, and one will be left.
41 Two women will be grinding meal together; one will be taken, and one will be left.
42 Keep awake, therefore, for you do not know on what day[a] your Lord is coming.
43 But understand this: if the owner of the house had known in what part of the night the thief was coming, he would have stayed awake and would not have let his house be broken into.
44 Therefore you also must be ready, for the Son of Man is coming at an hour you do not expect.
I want to know the day and hour, even of something non-lifechanging like having dinner guests. I do not want company to see that my house does not always shine. Yet life-changing events happen without warning. Babies seldom arrive on their due dates. Death works that way too. We need to be ready to have our lives changed without knowing the year, let alone the day or the hour. That humbles me. Frankly, it scares me. Annie Dillard’s essay, “God in the Doorway” helps me think about how to be prepared for an ultimate meeting with God. She remembers back to one childhood Christmas Eve when she saw Santa Claus at her front door and fled. She knew Santa knew when you’d been bad or good. She knew she’d been bad. She wanted Santa’s presents, not Santa’s presence. As an adult, Dillard looks back at that memory and applies it to the many times she runs from God. “For you meant only love, and love, and I felt only fear, and pain. So once in Israel love came to us incarnate, stood in the doorway between two worlds, and we were all afraid.”1
Prayer: Dear God, prepare us for Christ’s coming by transforming us by your infinite love. Amen.
Carol Simon
1 Annie Dillard, “God in the Doorway,” in Teaching a Stone to Talk. New York: HarperCollins, 1982. pp. 137-39.
[a] other ancient authorities read at what hour.