Shane Hyland, Leader of School Evangelisation at St Joseph’s Regional College reads today from the Gospel of Luke (12: 35-38) in which Jesus tells his disciples, ‘’See that you are dressed for action and have your lamps lit. Be like men waiting for their master to return”.

Shane says, Jesus wants us to be ready! Luke is recording some of the traditional sayings of Jesus but in a later time when Christians are not expecting Jesus to return immediately. They intuit that it will be a longer period of time before he comes again.

As Christians living in the age of the church this should be our basic attitude, one that looks back to Jesus’ life on earth, his death and resurrection while at the same time looking forward to his return.

Shane notes, the example that Jesus uses in today’s Gospel is the wedding feast. The wedding feast is used in the Gospels when speaking about God’s Kingdom. The master in the story has been to the feast, that is, Jesus has died and risen to glory with God, and he returns to find his faithful people ready for action, or in other translations their loins girded. But the exact opposite happens to what you would expect. The master waits for the servants! So, then what are the servants waiting for if they aren’t to serve their master? The Lord comes to serve, not to be served. Those who are ready will be waited on, which is another way of saying they will be admitted to the kingdom, to share in the glory of God.

Later in Luke’s Gospel this parable is brought to life on the road to Emmaus. Two of the disciples are walking on the road, heading in the wrong direction. They are definitely not ready for Jesus who they didn’t recognise is walking right beside them explaining the scriptures to them. They do eventually recognise him at a meal! A banquet. He is waiting on them, the master is waiting on the servants, and he then disappears.

The language of kingdom and glory and master and slave is rooted in the context of the Roman Empire and first century Palestine. So how can we understand it today?

Jesus wants us to be ready! One way to interpret all of this is that we should be ready when the time comes to die. To be with God. So, we look back to the way Jesus lived and what he taught, this is how we prepare, we intentionally imitate him, we become intentional disciples, praying, helping others in their material and spiritual needs.

Shane says, if we do these things to the best of our ability, we will be ready.