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Office Of Readings | Advent Thursday Week 1 | A Reading From Saint Ephraem’s Commentary On The Diatessaron | Keep Watch: He Is To Come Again
‘Keep watch: he is to come again.’
Saint Ephraem reflects on why Christ chose not to reveal the day or the hour of his return. For Ephraem, this hiddenness is not meant to create fear but to preserve longing and vigilance. If the exact time were known, he says, the desire for Christ would fade and the urgency of Christian living would weaken. By keeping the time concealed, Christ invites every generation to live as though he might come today. This keeps faith attentive and the heart awake.
Ephraem also wants to make something clear: the hiddenness of the hour does not mean that Christ is uncertain about it. Christ speaks of signs, but he does not reveal their final meaning or sequence. This prevents believers from imagining that Christ is subject to fate or controlled by time. Instead, the focus remains on his authority and on our responsibility to stay ready.
Ephraem then turns to the meaning of watchfulness itself. He distinguishes between the sleep of the body and the sleep of the soul. Bodily sleep is natural, but spiritual sleep is dangerous. When the soul becomes discouraged, careless, or weighed down by sadness, it loses the clarity needed to resist temptation. In that state, Ephraem says, the enemy gains influence. This is why Christ commands vigilance: not only alertness to future events, but also a steady interior readiness to meet whatever each day brings.
For Ephraem, watchfulness is therefore a daily practice. It means resisting the laziness that weakens prayer. It means guarding against discouragement. It means remembering that Christ may come at any moment, whether in final glory or in the quiet visits of grace that shape the life of the believer. His message is simple: keep your heart awake, because Christ is near, and his nearness asks for attention, courage, and hope.
A Reading From Saint Ephraem’s Commentary On The Diatessaron | Keep Watch: He Is To Come Again
To prevent his disciples from asking the time of his coming, Christ said: About that hour no one knows, neither the angels nor the Son. It is not for you to know times or moments. He has kept those things hidden so that we may keep watch, each of us thinking that he will come in our own day. If he had revealed the time of his coming, his coming would have lost its savour: it would no longer be an object of yearning for the nations and the age in which it will be revealed. He promised that he would come but did not say when he would come, and so all generations and ages await him eagerly.
Though the Lord has established the signs of his coming, the time of their fulfilment has not been plainly revealed. These signs have come and gone with a multiplicity of change; more than that, they are still present. His final coming is like his first. As holy men and prophets waited for him, thinking that he would reveal himself in their own day, so today each of the faithful longs to welcome him in his own day, because Christ has not made plain the day of his coming.
He has not made it plain for this reason especially, that no one may think that he whose power and dominion rule all numbers and times is ruled by fate and time. He described the signs of his coming; how could what he has himself decided be hidden from him? Therefore, he used these words to increase respect for the signs of his coming, so that from that day forward all generations and ages might think that he would come again in their own day.
Keep watch; when the body is asleep nature takes control of us, and what is done is not done by our will but by force, by the impulse of nature. When deep listlessness takes possession of the soul, for example, faint-heartedness or melancholy, the enemy overpowers it and makes it do what it does not will. The force of nature, the enemy of the soul, is in control.
When the Lord commanded us to be vigilant, he meant vigilance in both parts of man: in the body, against the tendency to sleep; in the soul, against lethargy and timidity. As Scripture says: Wake up, you just, and I have risen, and am still with you; and again, Do not lose heart. Therefore, having this ministry, we do not lose heart.
Christian Prayer With Jesus
Lord Jesus Christ,
you have promised to come, though you have not told us the hour.
Keep us watchful in mind and steady in heart.
Guard us from discouragement, from carelessness,
and from every heaviness that dulls the soul.
Awaken in us the longing for your presence,
and help us to recognise you when you come to us in quiet ways today.
Strengthen our hope for your final coming,
and make us faithful in the time given to us,
that when you appear in glory
we may stand before you with joy.
Amen.
Glossary Of Christian Terms
Advent – The season of preparation for Christ’s coming: in history at his birth, in grace now, and in glory at the end of time.
Vigilance – Spiritual alertness or watchfulness; attentiveness to God’s presence and to the movements of the heart.
The second coming – Christ’s final return in glory to judge the living and the dead and to renew all creation.
Grace – God’s free and loving gift of his own life and help, enabling believers to live and grow in holiness.
Temptation – An inner or outer prompting toward sin or unfaithfulness; a test of one’s trust in God.
The enemy – A traditional term referring to the devil or spiritual forces opposed to God’s work in the soul.
Signs of his coming – Scriptural indications that point toward the final return of Christ, though their exact fulfilment remains hidden.
The soul’s sleep – A state of spiritual heaviness or discouragement in which a person becomes less responsive to God.
Hope – The theological virtue by which Christians trust in God’s promises and look forward to the fulfilment of his kingdom.
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