Don’t Delay: Daily Thoughts from Mark (Mark 13:32-37)

Though Jesus has revealed a lot about the future, there are some things he has not revealed, specifically the hour of his return.  And that seems to be the thing we most want to know.  Why?

I’m afraid it is because we would like to hold off committing to him until the last moment.  We would like to exercise what we suppose is control over our own lives until we absolutely have to give it over to him and if we knew when he was coming back we could make a decision about that.  This assumes, of course, that we also know when we are going to die, which we do not, and so there is really no proper decision to put off coming to Jesus.

“But concerning that day or that hour, no one knows, not even the angels in heaven, nor the Son, but only the Father. Be on guard, keep awake. For you do not know when the time will come. It is like a man going on a journey, when he leaves home and puts his servants in charge, each with his work, and commands the doorkeeper to stay awake. Therefore stay awake—for you do not know when the master of the house will come, in the evening, or at midnight, or when the rooster crows, or in the morning—lest he come suddenly and find you asleep. And what I say to you I say to all: Stay awake.” (Mark 13:32-37, ESV) 

There has been an amazing number of people who believed they knew when Jesus was coming back.  Charles Russell, founder of Jehovah’s Witnesses predicted two dates that have long since passed.

But Jesus makes it very clear that no one but the Father knew when he was coming back.  Because we don’t know the time of his return other than very general signs and a specific one in the desecration of the temple, we must stay alert.  He can come suddenly, so stay awake.  This is a responsibility of all servants of the Lord Jesus.

It may seem contradictory of Jesus’ deity that he didn’t at this time know the hour of his return.  But it is actually consistent with the fact that he was not exercising his deity while here on earth.  He came to live as a human to show us how and to bear our guilt in his own body on the cross.  Though he could access his infinite knowledge he chose not to so that he could live the way we live, in total dependence on the Spirit.  The Spirit chose to reveal many things to Jesus, like, for example, that the woman at the well had had five husbands, but not the hour of his return.