The Culture of Hope Founded on Faith
Watch and Pray
While Jesus sat with His disciples on the Mount of Olives to the East of Jerusalem, they asked Him when the things He had been talking about would come to pass and how they would know when the prophecies were fulfilled. Mark 13 describes his teachings on this occasion, showing Jesus to be well versed in and effectively using Scripture, and speaking unreservedly in terms of Old Testament imagery. He ends His dissertation with multiple admonitions to “watch” and to “pray”:
“But of that day and that hour knows no man; no, not even the angels which are in heaven, neither the Son, but the Father only. Take heed, watch and pray. For you know not when the time is. For the Son of man is as a man taking a far journey, who left his house, gave authority to his servants and to every man his work, and commanded the porter to watch. Watch therefore: for you know not when the master of the house will come, at even or at midnight, or at the cockcrowing, or in the morning, lest coming suddenly He finds you sleeping. And what I say unto you, I say unto all, Watch” (Mark 13:32-37).
Matthew 24 and 25 expands the same discussion and includes the parable of the ten virgins, five wise who were watching and ready with lamps trimmed, and five foolish who failed to watch because they failed to prepare for the coming of the bridegroom. This, too, ends with the admonition to “Watch therefore, for you know neither the day nor the hour wherein the Son of man comes” (Matt. 25:13).
When Jesus went through His final prayer time in the Garden of Gethsemane, He asked His disciples to watch and pray with Him. When He saw that they had fallen asleep, He said to Peter “What, could you not watch with me one hour? Watch and pray, that you enter not into temptation. The spirit indeed is willing, but the flesh is weak” (Matt. 26:40-41).
The instruction to watch and pray is not just for the disciples who were alive when Jesus walked on earth. We are also called to watch and pray. Both Paul and Peter firmly directed all of Jesus’ followers, including future followers like us, to watch and pray. What, then, does “watch and pray” look like in each individual’s life? The contextual idea in Jesus’ talk on the Mount of Olives involved end times, making sure we are truly ready to face God. The “watch and pray” of the Garden of Gethsemane focused on personal purity. And we are called to demonstrate both every day:
►“Watch ye, stand fast in the faith, quit you like men, and be strong. Let all your things be done with charity” (1 Cor. 16:13).
►“Continue in prayer and watch in the same with thanksgiving. Besides this, pray also for us that God would open unto us a door of utterance to speak the mystery of Christ, for which I am also in bonds, that I may make it manifest as I ought to speak” (Col. 4:2-4).
►“Therefore let us not sleep, as do others, but let us watch and be sober. For they that sleep, sleep in the night. And they that be drunken are drunken in the night. But let us, who are of the day, be sober, putting on the breastplate of faith and love and for a helmet, the hope of salvation” (1 Thess. 5:6-7).
►“But watch in all things, endure afflictions, do the work of an evangelist, make full proof of your ministry. For I am now ready to be offered and the time of my departure is at hand. I have fought a good fight, I have finished my course, I have kept the faith. Henceforth there is laid up for me a crown of righteousness which the Lord, the righteous judge, shall give me at that day. And not to me only, but unto all them also that love his appearing” (2 Tim 4:5-8).
►“But the end of all things is at hand. Be sober, therefore, and watch unto prayer. And above all things have fervent charity among yourselves, for charity shall cover the multitude of sins. Use hospitality one to another without grudging. As every man has received the gift, even so minister the same one to another as good stewards of the manifold grace of God. If any man speak, let him speak as the oracles of God. If any man minister, let him do it as of the ability which God gives that God, in all things, may be glorified through Jesus Christ to whom be praise and dominion for ever and ever. Amen” (1 Pet 4:7-11).
