Theme of the Day: It’s Time To Be Watchful
Imagine you are planning to take the family out to dinner. You all have to wait for someone to get ready. Minute after minute passes. What can happen in that situation? It’s easy to focus on something else and even forget the original goal. Perhaps as you wait, you even fall asleep.
As we wait for Christ to return, as day after day passes, it can be easy to get distracted, to lose vigilance, to become spiritually drowsy. It’s the beginning of the end. Why does it have to take so long? God forbid that Christ should return and find us spiritually asleep. Today we are reminded that the time between Christ’s first and second coming is a time for watchfulness.
Matthew 25:1-13
Isaiah 52:1-6
1 Thessalonians 5:1-11
Psalm 90A
713 – I Want to Walk as a Child of the Light
486 – Wake, Awake, for Night Is Flying
873 – Rise, My Soul, to Watch and Pray
707 – Cling Tightly to the Word of God
490 – The Clouds of Judgment Gather
Prayer of the Day: Almighty God and Savior, you have set the final day and hour when we shall be delivered from this world of sin and death. Keep us ever watchful for the coming of your Son that we may sit with him and all your holy ones at the marriage feast in heaven; through your Son, Jesus Christ our Lord, who lives and reigns with you and the Holy Spirit, one God, now and forever.
Gospel Acclamation: Alleluia. Therefore keep watch, because you do not know on what day your Lord will come. Alleluia.