Sleep-walking Toward Gomorrah

The hearing ear and the seeing eye, the LORD has made them both.  Love not sleep, lest you come to poverty; open your eyes, and you will have plenty of bread. – Proverbs 20:12-13

The Bible tells us often to wake up: 

Wake up from your drunken stupor, as is right, and do not go on sinning. For some have no knowledge of God. I say this to your shame (1 Corinthians 15:34).

[F]or anything that becomes visible is light. Therefore it says, Awake, O sleeper, and arise from the dead, and Christ will shine on you (Ephesians 5:14).

On the other hand, sleep can be a good thing.

Unless the LORD builds the house, those who build it labor in vain.  Unless the LORD watches over the city, the watchman stays awake in vain.  It is in vain that you rise up early and go late to rest, eating the bread of anxious toil; for he gives to his beloved sleep (Psalm 127:1-2).

There is more than one kind of sleep and more than one kind of bread.  The sleep against which the proverb warns is the closing of our eyes and ears to the spiritual nature of our existence.  It is to dream that we are mere primates, clever apes and intelligent beasts.  That we can see we are more than animals is a gift of God.  Our spiritual senses testify to the Spirit just as our eyes are proof of the existence of light. 

If we close our eyes to the true nature of our existence, we will live impoverished lives, always hungering for some missing nutrient, no matter how much bread and beef and beer we consume. 

If we open our eyes, however, we will find, to our everlasting joy, that the Bread of Life is ours and in abundance.  All the true, honorable, righteous, and lovely desires of the spirit within us will find satisfaction and fulfillment. 

The world lives in a nightmare, somnolent and senseless.  Like all dreamers, their situations, motivations, and actions are often bizarre and irrational.  When we are surrounded by such, we may come to wonder if we are not the sleepers.  A few minutes of the evening news is usually sufficient to convince me otherwise.   

You Can Sleep When You’re Dead

And He came to the disciples and found them sleeping, and said to Peter, “So, you men could not keep watch with Me for one hour? Keep watching and praying, that you may not enter into temptation; the spirit is willing, but the flesh is weak.” – Matthew 26:40-41 (NASB)

Sometimes I struggle to wake up and stay awake; often I’d rather be asleep. Much of what we do serves to lull us into a state of unawareness. One reason that America has an obesity epidemic is that we eat while doing something else. We’re not paying attention to what we are consuming, any more than we pay attention when fueling our automobiles. Another reason is that some of us use food as a sedative, something to dull our senses as the blood is diverted from our brains to our stomachs.

Food isn’t the only spiritual pain-killer in our arsenal. Aside from the obvious like alcohol and tobacco, the various and sundry drugs available, there is work, not to mention sports, music, television, and computers. Most of these analgesics are not a problem in themselves; the sin is when we abuse them to avoid dealing with the realities of life. In my own case, I tend to use work to isolate and insulate myself from things that are happening around me. I often welcome the hotline calls and the around-the-clock demands because they free me from other responsibilities that are even less agreeable. I can lose myself in the pressure and stress – as crazy as that sounds – just like I used to lose myself in a six-pack of tall Buds, or a pint of Jack Black.

And Christ says that losing my self is the whole point, except that I should lose myself in Him. Every other “loss” is not just temporary but destructive. The life I lose to a sedative is simply gone. Losing my life in Christ is an exchange for abundant life. The Lord tells us not to go to sleep, not to anesthetize ourselves, but to watch and pray. When Jesus warns us to be alert and vigilant, it is not about the Rapture or the Second Advent as much as it is about our letting Him into our lives. You, too, be ready; for the Son of Man is coming at an hour you do not expect.

Jesus wants to commune with us. The call to watch is a call to disciples, not to unbelievers. When Jesus says, Behold, I stand at the door and knock; if anyone hears My voice and opens the door, I will come in to him, and will dine with him, and he with Me, He is not talking to those who do not know Him but to His own Church, His own Bride, His own Body. We are the ones who have shut the door in His face and gone to sleep. We are the ones who ignore His call, who sleep on in our eternally secure salvation.

I’m all right. I’ve trusted Jesus to save me from the penalty of my sins. I’m living a good mediocre life of socially acceptable righteousness. I’m just trusting Him to take care of everything.

And He will. He won’t hold it against us any more than He held their weakness, their lack of wakefulness against Peter, James, and John there in Gethsemane. Yet He desires that we should stay alert, that we should, right now, watch with Him.

The only time to wake up and pay attention is NOW.