Alert And Sober

           Therefore, with minds that are alert and fully sober, set your hope on the grace to be brought to you when Jesus Christ is revealed at his coming. (I Peter 1:3)

          For the past ten months, I’ve been telling people, “Don’t be stupid. Don’t over-react. Don’t be stupid. Don’t under-react.” Peter tells us to be alert. We aren’t to be asleep at the wheel. We’re not to wander around like Pollyanna, pretending that there’s nothing wrong. But neither are we to run around like Chicken Little, screaming that the sky is falling, even if it seems to be.

          But my advice wasn’t as good as Peter’s. For how long would you be alert if someone said, “Be alert!” For how long would you be sober if someone said, “Be sober!” Be alert for what? Be sober about what? This is part of the problem with the whole pandemic panic. We can only be on alert for just so long before our minds drift unless someone ratchets up the fear level.

          But Peter tells us what we should be alert and sober about: the grace that will be brought to us when Jesus returns. What grace is this? He doesn’t elaborate, but some ideas come to mind… the grace of acceptance, eternal life, immediate salvation (AKA: help or rescue), victory. We tend to think of Jesus’ return as His second coming, when the whole world will see Him, and that is certainly true. But Jesus visited Earth before His first advent. His hand is not so weak that He cannot come to us or for us before that second coming. That means that if we die before He returns, we’re not left graceless or disgraced.

          But the key is that we need to keep this in mind. We are alert and sober not as some general principle, but because we are looking for His coming, and for what will happen when He does. Viktor Frankl taught that we can survive anything if we have a reason – a why. Jesus, and His return, are the why to fuel our alertness and sobriety, and the why by which we survive the waiting.