Throughout the twenty-ninth week in Ordinary Time, the Church reads the letter of Paul, apostle of the nations, to the Ephesians, and on this Tuesday sets beside it a word of Jesus about servants who wait in the night. Our difficulty is the fear that God is far away, or that a door stays shut against us. The readings lead us from distant strangers to a household, then to a lamp and a knock:
Let your waists be girded, and let lamps be burning in your hands. And let you yourselves be like men awaiting their lord, when he will return from the wedding; so that, when he arrives and knocks, they may open to him promptly. Blessed are those servants whom the Lord, when he returns, will find being vigilant. Amen I say to you, that he will gird himself and have them sit down to eat, while he, continuing on, will minister to them. And if he will return in the second watch, or if in the third watch, and if he will find them to be so: then blessed are those servants. (Lk 12:35-38)
The first reading shows Paul, the apostle of the nations, recalling to the Ephesians how far they once stood from God: strangers to the covenant and without hope in the promise. But that distance is over, and Paul gives its reason in a single sentence: "For he is our peace" (Eph 2:14). Christ has made Jews and pagans one new humanity and has broken down the wall that divided them. Peace is therefore no treaty drawn up between neighbours, but a person, Christ himself, who has made the two one.
What does this peace make of those who receive it? Paul answers that they "are citizens among the saints in the household of God" (Eph 2:19), built on the foundation of the apostles and the prophets, with Christ Jesus himself as the cornerstone. The strangers are no longer visitors at the threshold, since they now belong inside. And the house is still rising, for in him all that has been built is framed together into a holy temple in the Lord. Differences of origin are thus the very stones the building is made from.
The psalm answers with a posture. Here the psalmist declares: "I will listen to what the Lord God may be saying to me" (Ps 84:9). The psalmist begins with an open ear. And what the Lord says is peace for his people, the very peace Paul has just named. Thus the Lord who speaks peace in the psalm is the Christ who is our peace in Paul.
In the Gospel, Jesus speaks to his disciples of servants who wait for their master to return from a wedding, and his first command concerns their clothing: "Let your waists be girded, and let lamps be burning in your hands" (Lk 12:35). To gird the waist is to put on the clothes of service, and to hold a lamp is to keep the light burning through the night. The servants wait neither idly nor in fear. They wait awake, with the door in mind, so that they may open to him promptly when he arrives and knocks. Whoever watches in this way is ready to welcome God.
But the surprise lies in the next verse. A master might expect to be served, and yet this one reverses the order: "he will gird himself and have them sit down to eat, while he, continuing on, will minister to them" (Lk 12:37). The master takes the servant's place. This gesture already announces the washing of the feet, the act on the eve of the Passion that revealed the total gift of him who came to serve and not to be served. God is not the master who is waited upon, but the one who kneels before humanity.
Then Jesus names the hour, the second watch or the third, and so places vigilance in the middle of the night. Being ready means crossing the dark with the lamp of faith and an active love. That is why the Gospel's call to stay girded and standing is both a command and a wish: the Lord wants us upright and awake, and he calls such servants blessed.
In the spirituality of Bethlehem, the night is where God arrives. He came as a child in the dark, into a world that had kept no room for him, and he comes again as the Master who girds himself to serve. The crib and the girded waist belong to one mystery, that of a God who makes himself small in order to give himself without reserve. That is why the watcher of Bethlehem treats the dark hour as the place where the Lord will knock.
We are called to keep the lamp lit in the ordinary hours of our days, at home, at work and in prayer, rather than waiting for an extraordinary sign. This asks of us an attentive heart, a heart that listens, as the psalmist does, and that serves, as the Master does.
So let us stand, and let us open. The same Lord who has given us access to the Father in one Spirit will knock, whether in the second watch or in the third, and he will find the door already open and the lamp still burning. Then the house that Christ is building will have one more stone, and the night will have one more light.
Scripture text: Catholic Public Domain Version (CPDV), public domain.
Prayer of the Day
Lord Jesus, Child of Bethlehem and Master who serves, you came into the night and you gird yourself to wait on those who watch. Make us listeners like the psalmist, builders of the house of peace, and servants with lamps burning. Break down every wall that divides us, and when you knock, let us open to you promptly and with joy. Amen.
For Meditation
- Which walls do we still keep between ourselves and others, and how does Christ, who is our peace, stand in that gap?
- Where in our ordinary day is the lamp lit, and where have we let it burn low?
- What would it mean to let the Lord serve us, and then to serve our brothers and sisters as he does?
