Jesus said to his disciples:
“Be watchful! Be alert!
You do not know when the time will come.
It is like a man traveling abroad.
He leaves home and places his servants in charge,
each with his own work,
and orders the gatekeeper to be on the watch.
Watch, therefore;
you do not know when the Lord of the house is coming,
whether in the evening, or at midnight,
or at cockcrow, or in the morning.
May he not come suddenly and find you sleeping.
What I say to you, I say to all: ‘Watch’” (Mark 13:33-37)

Practically, the advice to “be alert” or “watch” gets a little boring, especially when there is an indeterminate period in which you are supposed to be alert and watch.  How long do you watch? How long should you be alert? All along the watchtower, even watchmen, whose very task is to watch and be alert, get spelled off after some hours on the job. It is the reality that alertness flags for all of us. How do you watch without end and remain alert?

Preparation for the parousia, or arrival, of a Roman emperor would certainly have meant readying the streets, monuments, banquets and people of the city at which he would arrive. This time of waiting and anticipation might be extended by a late arrival, but the end was in sight. There would be no interminable watching, waiting, preparation, anticipation. The Arrival would occur and the watch would come to an end, with daily life returning to normal.

More than this, what does it actually mean to be alert and to watch in the context of Jesus’ parousia (Greek) or adventus (Latin)? I know what it means to watch for an enemy at the gates – though I think of it more in Monty Python and the Holy Grail terms, rife with French mockery – or to keep awake for a period of time to take in information, play a game, wait for your in-laws or care for a child. But what does “watch” actually mean in the context of Jesus’ coming?

It is the transformation of what it means to “watch” that makes the ancient concept of the King’s parousia applicable to Jesus’ coming even as it is packaged with a sense of unending “alertness.” Jesus speaks of his disciples “each with their own work” in preparation for his coming. Watchfulness is coupled with the vocation each of us have. It goes, however, beyond even our faithfulness to our own tasks.

Paul says that God himself has been active in the preparation of those who yearn for the parousia of the King, for God’s grace has been “bestowed on you in Christ Jesus, that in him you were enriched in every way, with all discourse and all knowledge, as the testimony to Christ was confirmed among you,so that you are not lacking in any spiritual gift as you wait for the revelation of our Lord Jesus Christ. He will keep you firm to the end, irreproachable on the day of our Lord Jesus Christ. God is faithful, and by him you were called to fellowship with his Son, Jesus Christ our Lord” (1 Cor. 3:1-9). It is God himself who has been faithful to us as we have been, and are being prepared, for his coming.

As we wait for Christ’s coming, we are asked to remain faithful to the life we have been given – to watch is to live – and are reminded by Paul that to prepare is to allow ourselves to be prepared by the one who’s coming we await: he will enrich us; we lack no spiritual gift; we will be firm until the end; irreproachable on the day of his adventus. We watch and are alert by allowing ourselves to be transformed day by day in the life we have been given.

John W. Martens

Follow me on Twitter @johnwmartens

John W. Martens is an associate professor of theology at the University of St. Thomas, St. Paul, Minn,where he teaches early Christianity and Judaism. He also directs the Master of Arts in Theology program at the St. Paul Seminary School of Divinity. He was born in Vancouver, B.C. into a Mennonite family that had decided to confront modernity in an urban setting. His post-secondary education began at Tabor College, Hillsboro, Kansas, came to an abrupt stop, then started again at Vancouver Community College, where his interest in Judaism and Christianity in the earliest centuries emerged. He then studied at St. Michael's College, University of Toronto, and McMaster University, with stops at University of Haifa and University of Tubingen. His writing often explores the intersection of Jewish, Christian and Greco-Roman culture and belief, such as in "let the little children come to me: Children and Childhood in Early Christianity" (Washington, D.C.: The Catholic University of America Press, 2009), but he is not beyond jumping into the intersection of modernity and ancient religion, as in "The End of the World: The Apocalyptic Imagination in Film and Television" (Winnipeg: J. Gordon Shillingford Press, 2003). He blogs at  www.biblejunkies.com and at www.americamagazine.org for "The Good Word." You can follow him on Twitter @biblejunkies, where he would be excited to welcome you to his random and obscure interests, which range from the Vancouver Canucks and Minnesota Timberwolves, to his dog, and 70s punk, pop and rock. When he can, he brings students to Greece, Turkey and Rome to explore the artifacts and landscape of the ancient world. He lives in St. Paul with his wife and has two sons. He is certain that the world will not end until the Vancouver Canucks have won the Stanley Cup, as evidence has emerged from the Revelation of John, 1 Enoch, 2 Baruch, and 4 Ezra which all point in this direction.