Hello my friends,

I wanted to begin today with a gentle reminder to be kind to yourself. In the midst of the way our world is today, especially during the holiday season, we can spend so much time serving and advocating for others that we can neglect ourselves. In fact, for many of us, we can even be tremendously hard on ourselves for not doing "enough." This is deeply disruptive, not only to our sense of self, but to the very goal of caring for others. When we do not show up for ourselves, care for ourselves, and advocate for ourselves, we cannot show up fully in our care and advocacy for others. Self love empowers our love for others. Remember, Jesus called us to love God and love our neighbor as ourselves. We must not forget to love ourselves as we love God and our neighbor. So, be kind to yourself.

Today I want to think with you about Jesus call to "keep watch" as the season of advent begins.

I just wanted to let you know one last time that my new advent devotional is now available. It begins November 30th and ends Christmas day. You can read more about it through the link below.

$20.00 Solace: The Birth of Hope in a Time of Longing This devotional is an ebook, crafted as a daily scripture readings and reflections that begin on the First Sunday of... Read more Get it now!

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Being Left Behind Is The Goal.

Matthew 24:36–44

“But about that day or hour no one knows, not even the angels in heaven, nor the Son, but only the Father. As it was in the days of Noah, so it will be at the coming of the Son of Man. For in the days before the flood, people were eating and drinking, marrying and giving in marriage, up to the day Noah entered the ark; and they knew nothing about what would happen until the flood came and took them all away. That is how it will be at the coming of the Son of Man. Two men will be in the field; one will be taken and the other left. Two women will be grinding with a hand mill; one will be taken and the other left.

“Therefore keep watch, because you do not know on what day your Lord will come. But understand this: If the owner of the house had known at what time of night the thief was coming, he would have kept watch and would not have let his house be broken into. So you also must be ready, because the Son of Man will come at an hour when you do not expect him.

This passage will be read in churches around the world as the season of Advent begins on November 30th. As one who grew up not knowing what the season of advent even was, when I first heard this passage being read as we began our journey towards Christmas, I found it jarring to what I saw as the festive holiday season. Jesus’ words here are not the twinkling lights or nostalgia we often look for this time of year, but rather a startling reminder: “You do not know when your Lord is coming.” His words land like a bell rung in the fog, disruptive, clarifying, and insistent. He draws us into that ancient tension between God’s hiddenness and God’s promise, inviting us to live awake in a world that drifts easily into sleep. In our world so marked by busyness, chaos, division, suffering, and heartbreak, I am beginning to think that there isn’t a more fitting way to begin this season of advent than with these words.

Let’s take a deeper look.

The Days of Noah and the Hope of Being “Left Behind”

When Jesus invokes the days of Noah, he is not painting a scene of divine snatching-away, but of people so absorbed in their own concerns that they simply do not notice the movement of God in their midst. They are eating and drinking, marrying and celebrating, which are ordinary and beautiful acts, but Jesus is pointing out how they were practiced with no attention to God, no concern for justice, no readiness for mercy’s arrival. And then the flood sweeps them away.

As one whose theology was long steeped in dispensationalism, I heard this passage read often from pulpits affirming what is known as the “rapture,” which is famously depicted in the “Left Behind” franchise. However, Jesus’ words actually run counter to the modern “Left Behind” imagination. In that framework, the righteous are taken and the unrighteous are left behind. But Jesus describes the opposite. Just like in the days of Noah, it is the violent and indifferent who are carried off, while the righteous, the ones attuned to God, attentive to reality, remain. Noah is “left behind,” on the arch with his family because he lived awake. So too then will those who remain attentive to the active presence of God’s love be preserved in God’s love in the end as it redeems all of creation. Just as we see in Noah’s arch with the animal kingdom also “being saved,” rapture theology regrettably presents the earth and all other created things as being destroyed rather than redeemed. This is not the vision of God’s redemption. God is working towards the restoration of all things, not for its destruction.

To be “left behind” in Jesus’ teaching is not a warning but a blessing. It means staying rooted, steady, grounded in God’s presence, even when the world around you is carried away by apathy, greed, or despair. It means being among those who, like Noah, keep watch and keep ready.

A Word for the Hyper-Vigilant and the Scrupulous Like Me.

For many of us who grew up in fear-driven religious environments, passages like this do not feel like hope. They feel like the old shame waking up in us again. The mind reflexively asks, Am I doing enough? Am I watchful enough? What if I fail God today?

This text can sound like an accusation rather than an invitation.

Some of us learned to be constantly on edge, constantly evaluating every word, every desire, every minor mistake as though one wrong step would estrange us from Jesus forever. As if one wrong thought would cause us to be “left behind.” For some of us, this became a daily anguish. An aguish Christian tradition has called scrupulosity: a form of religious anxiety in which the inner critic becomes a tyrant, punishing us for every flaw and holding us hostage to fear. A tyrant we have wrongly been taught to hear as the voice of God.

But Jesus’ call to “keep watch” has nothing to do with that crushing self-surveillance.

He is not asking us to scour our souls for defects or fear that the smallest misstep will condemn us forever. His words move in an entirely different direction. To keep watch is to stay grounded in the life he brings—mercy that heals, justice that lifts the lowly, love that refuses to give up on the world. To be ready is to be engaged in his way of peace, not trapped in a cycle of self-accusation.

Jesus’ return is not meant as a threat hanging over our heads. It is the promise that the One who loves us more deeply than we dare imagine is coming to set everything right.

This is a hope to welcome with joy, not dread.

The Thief in the Night: A Subversive Metaphor of Hope

If it isn’t about dread, then why does Jesus compare his coming to the arrival of a thief in the night? The image is unsettling to be sure and intentionally so. His point through is not that he comes to harm, but that his arrival disrupts the world’s patterns. In a society shaped by self-interest, where power protects itself and compassion is treated as weakness, the sudden appearing of a ruler whose very nature is self-giving love will feel like an intrusion.

Love always surprises the world that has settled for less.

Just as a break-in catches a household off guard, so the world—busy with its rivalries, exhausted by its fears—will be startled when the reign of God breaks into history and brings true community and peace.

We who follow Jesus are called to trust in this coming. We are called to be the ones most familiar with the landscape of God’s promises. We are called to know how to read the weather of grace and the movement of love. We are called to be the ones who choose to stay awake, to live in a way that hopes for and anticipates goodness.

To keep watch, then, is not to be frightened; it is to be oriented toward the rising dawn.

In a world like ours, this is a courageous, humble, and subversive act.

Action Steps for Advent Wakefulness

1. Practice gentle attentiveness.​
   Notice one place today where God’s compassion is stirring—within you, around you, or through you.
2. Engage in one act of mercy or justice.​
   Choose something small but concrete that aligns your life with Christ’s kingdom.
3. Release self-condemnation.​
   When your inner critic speaks, pause and breathe. Name the voice as fear, not the voice of Jesus.
4. Reclaim Scripture.​
   Pick a part of the Bible that has always confused you and has filled you with fear and read it through the character and love of Jesus instead.
5. Watch with others.​
   Reach out to someone who needs encouragement. Keeping watch is always better together.

A Prayer for the First Week of Advent

To the One who comes to us in love,
Awaken our hearts to your nearness.
Teach us to watch not with fear,
but with the hope that rises like dawn.

Where we have been swept away by distraction,
anchor us again in your mercy.
Where fear has sharpened our vigilance
into self-condemnation,
speak compassion to our weary souls.

Make us like Noah, steadfast, attentive,
rooted in your promise amid the noise of our world.
Make us like an attentive family,
alert not because we fear you,
but because we trust you.

Come to us, Jesus, disrupt our complacency,
startle us with justice,
surprise us with peace.
And make our lives small arks of compassion
in a world longing for renewal.

Amen.

Now I'd like to hear from you! Did you find this helpful? What thoughts came to your mind as you read? Feel free to respond to this email and share your thoughts with me. I look forward to reading them. A 30 Day Devotional: I recently wrote a 30 day devotional in hopes to provide a companion for people seeking to follow Jesus in our world today. You can read more about it here: $20.00 Following Jesus In A World Obsessed With Empires: 30 Days of reclaiming the hope, compassion, and justice of Jesus. Today, our world can often feel overwhelmed by darkness, division, and despair. I created this 30-day devotional to... Read more Get it now! ​ Ways to support: If you'd like to support this project, you can do so through one-time-gift of any amount you feel is right. You can also subscribe through a $5/mo, $15/mo, or $25/mo. Several others have also asked for a recurring gift option that is different from the ones offered here, like this one. If you'd like me to set up a different option for you, please just send me an email with the word "support" in the subject line. As always, I really want to thank all of you for reading and for all the ways you support me and this project every single week. I'm thankful for the ways we are building this together and hope it creates a lasting, positive change in our world along the way! I sincerely appreciate you all, Ben Remember, you can now view this and all previous newsletters as well as invite friends to join through this link: https://benjamin-cremer.ck.page/profile.

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