Be Ready for Jesus

Dear Brothers and Sisters in Christ,

There is a big difference between waiting and being ready. We wait for buses, appointments, messages, holidays. Waiting can be passive. But Jesus does not tell His disciples simply to wait. He says, “Let your loins be girded and your lamps burning.” In other words: be awake, be prepared, be ready to move. The Christian life is not meant to be lived on spiritual autopilot. The danger is that we can become so comfortable with faith that we stop expecting God to actually show up.

And maybe that is the real question in this Gospel: If Jesus came into my life today, would He find me ready? Not ready in the sense that everything is perfect, but ready in the sense that my heart is open. Would He find me forgiving, or holding onto resentment? Would He find me praying, or constantly postponing prayer? Would He find me serving, or always saying, “I’ll do that later”? We often imagine that the important moment with God will come someday in the future. But Jesus keeps meeting us in very ordinary moments: in the person asking for our patience, in the opportunity to forgive, in the quiet invitation to pray, in the chance to do something good when nobody is watching.

There is another beautiful detail in this Gospel. Jesus says that when the master returns and finds the servants ready, the master himself will sit them down and serve them. That is completely unexpected. Normally, servants serve the master. But Jesus turns the whole image upside down. This is who our God is. We stay awake for Him, but when He comes, we discover that He has already been serving us all along. Every grace, every second chance, every strength we did not know we had – these are signs of a God who comes not simply to demand, but to give Himself to us.

So perhaps readiness is not about fear. It is about love. When you are waiting for someone you love, you prepare differently. You keep the light on. You listen for the door. You want to be there when they arrive. That is the kind of vigilance Jesus is asking from us. Not anxiety about the end of the world, but attentiveness to His presence today. A Christian who is ready is simply someone who keeps saying, “Lord, whatever You ask of me today, I want to say yes.”

Maybe today we could ask ourselves one simple question: Where have I become spiritually sleepy? Perhaps in prayer. Perhaps in forgiveness. Perhaps in serving others. Perhaps in taking God seriously. Jesus does not say, “Be perfect when I come.” He says, “Be ready.” Keep the lamp burning. Keep your heart open. Keep choosing Him. Because the tragedy would not be that Christ came unexpectedly; the tragedy would be that He had been coming to us every day, and we were too distracted to notice.

Prayer: Lord Jesus, keep my heart awake. Where I have become comfortable, stir me. Where I have become distracted, call me back. Where I have postponed loving You, give me courage to begin again. Keep my lamp burning, so that when You come, in the ordinary moments of today, I may recognise You and welcome You. Amen.

– Homily by Rev. Fr. Patrick Agbeko