Watching: what the word meant before it meant this

"Take ye heed, watch and pray: for ye know not when the time is. For the Son of man is as a man taking a far journey, who left his house, and gave authority to his servants, and to every man his work, and commanded the porter to watch. Watch ye therefore: for ye know not when the master of the house cometh, at even, or at midnight, or at the cockcrowing, or in the morning: Lest coming suddenly he find you sleeping. And what I say unto you I say unto all, Watch." Mark 13:33-37

We talk a great deal about prayer watches. Usually we talk about them as a performance: how many hours, at what hour, how many nights running. That is not what Jesus describes here.

Notice first that the text names four moments: even, midnight, cockcrowing, morning. Those are not poetic flourishes. That is the Roman division of the night, familiar to everyone listening to Jesus — four watches of three hours each, from sunset to sunrise. Sentries relieved one another. Nobody held the whole night.

That is already a teaching. A watch is a relay, not a solo feat of endurance. The one who takes the midnight watch is not watching better than the one who took the evening; he is watching in his turn.

Next, the master who leaves does not tell his servants to wait with folded arms. He gives "to every man his work." Watching, in this parable, is not suspending your life until something happens. It is doing your work as someone who knows the master may walk back in. Vigilance and labour are the same thing here.

Then there is the porter. One man alone gets a particular instruction: stay awake to open the door. In a household everyone works, but somebody has to listen for the gate. The intercessor is that porter. He does not do the others' work; he holds the entrance while they do theirs.

Finally, the last line dismantles any temptation toward an elite: "What I say unto you I say unto all." The porter replaces no one. Watching is not subcontracted to a specialist ministry.

This week. Do not try to hold an entire night. Take one watch — three hours, or even one hour inside a watch — and hold it in your turn. And while you hold it, do your work. That is what watching is.

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