Ready, Not Surprised: Watchfulness Rooted in Love, Not Fear

This reflection on Matthew 24:42-47, the Lord's call to "Watch, for you do not know on what day your Lord is coming," explores how Christians should rightly order their expectations about Christ's return. Opening with Alexander Pope's cynical maxim about expecting nothing, the author argues that the problem is not having expectations but having the wrong ones—and that grounding expectation in the reality of Christ transforms one's priorities and choices.

The Gospel passage, drawn from the Olivet Discourse, deliberately withholds details about the timing of the Second Coming. The author presents this lack of specifics as intentional: it keeps our expectation rooted in love for Christ Himself rather than in fear or speculation. This stands in sharp contrast to sensationalistic "end times" systems—rapture theories, blood moons, supposed secret knowledge—whose very sensationalism reveals their incompatibility with the sober, peaceful message of the Faith.

People caught up in such speculation typically fix their attention on temporary things: politics, cultural turmoil, headlines. The healthier focus is anchoring anticipation entirely in love for Christ and living in preparation for being with Him forever. The reflection also distinguishes motivations: fear may initially wake us (as an alarm clock does), but the spiritually mature move from fear to the sustainable motivation of love, once they truly see how lovely Christ is.

The rhythm of worship, prayer, and practice turns faith from something we merely know into Someone we genuinely love—so that His return, or our own death, finds us simply awake. The post closes with the commemoration of St. Gregory the Illuminator, apostle to Armenia, who endured over a decade of imprisonment with his anticipation fixed on Christ alone, and whose witness led Armenia to become the first nation to officially embrace Christianity.