When the Cat's Away : Mark 13:32-37
How do we respond? Life is full of stimuli. Things happen. People talk trash. People make accusations. People praise our thoughts and the works of our hands. There are all kinds of stimuli to which we can respond. The question is, how do you respond?
There is much to love about Jesus’ analogy in these verses. He says life is like a master who leaves for a journey and puts his servants in charge. They don’t know when the master is coming back. The last thing the servants want is to let their master catch them not taking the responsibility seriously. Since they don’t know when the master is coming home, they need to maintain a steady state of vigilance.
It strikes me as a similar case to when a set of parents leave their teenager home alone for the first time. The parents will be back. They might even give the child a rough timeframe of when they expect to return. Most of the time, that timeframe turns out to be correct. Occasionally, things happen to the plans and the parents get back much quicker. Sometimes, traffic is bad or the restaurant is slow and the parents get back considerably later. The child knows their return is imminent but cannot know the exact time.
Being left alone for the first time grants an immediate euphoria. For the first time, the child can make whatever decision they want. The child can eat a dozen cookies all at once – assuming they are on hand, of course. The child could spend the whole time on their phone or playing games. They could sleep the entire time with nobody to wake them. Freedom grants a certain exhilaration.
There is also a bit of danger. Leave the stove on and put something too close to the flame and the whole house could catch fire. If some random water pipe bursts there is nobody immediately present who knows how to find resolution. If someone breaks into the house there is no adult to handle the situation. Things can go wrong.
The same is true with the Father. He has left us in His creation and has promised to return. He’s giving us an opportunity to see what we’ll do. Are we thoughtless and only pursue our own desires? Do we take what has been given to us as use it responsibly? Do we look after the people around us, caring for them while they similarly try to find their way through life?
Nobody knows the time or the place. None of us are perfect; none of us always makes the right decision. What God wants to know, though, is how we go about our life. Do we follow Him when nobody is looking? When we go astray, do we revel in our abandonment of His ways or do we feel remorse and return to Him? He has left us in His creation with the freedom to do as we please. How do we respond?
