On Guard with Lamps Lit:

On Guard with Lamps Lit:

Casey Harper

Home invaders — whether murderous or simply after your flat screen — are not new. Mankind has always dealt with the problem, albeit without the aid of a .44 magnum or a Winchester. That’s probably why Jesus used a similar metaphor in his teachings on the end of all things, specifically his own return to Earth. His parable captures the fear and suddenness of a break-in event, and the high stakes. In the same way a thief cannot catch someone unawares if they are ready and waiting, Jesus’s own return will expose who was ready — and who wasn’t.

“Behold, I am coming like a thief! Blessed is the one who stays awake, keeping his garments on, that he may not go about naked and be seen exposed!” (Revelation 16:15)

“Therefore, stay awake, for you do not know on what day your Lord is coming. But know this, that if the master 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. Therefore you also must be ready, for the Son of Man is coming at an hour you do not expect.” (Matthew 24:42-44)

We tiptoe around the end times in many modern churches. It’s understandable. Teaching on the “end” often ranges between confusing charts laid out by an overeager pastor to doomsday negativity that seems to lack relevance to my daily life. But Jesus spoke of the end, and He focuses less on dates and timetables and more on warning the individual, how YOU can be ready when He returns.

Two more of Jesus’s end-times parables give us the same command: keep your lamps lit.

In one parable, Jesus tells us to wait at the door with our lamps lit (Luke 12) waiting for the master to return. In another, He tells us to keep our lamps trimmed and with enough oil so they do not go out (Matthew 25). If we don’t, we are respectively like lazy workers sleeping on the job or women who weren’t ready for the wedding day.

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