The parables Jesus tells in Matthew 24-25 all point to the same call: stay prepared, stay engaged, stay ready. We never know when the end will come. Like a soccer match ticking into stoppage time, we don't know when the final whistle will blow. And just as only the referee knows when a match is officially over, only God the Father knows when the end will come. Jesus himself says as much: "Now concerning that day and hour no one knows, neither the angels of heaven nor the Son,

If you have ever watched a soccer match, you know the frustration. There is no clock counting down. Instead, it counts up, and only one person on the entire pitch, the referee, knows exactly how much time is left. At the end of a half, he holds up a sign with a number on it: 6 added minutes, 7, sometimes as high as 11. Where did all that time go? That was stoppage time, every moment play stopped for a foul, an injury, or a celebration, tracked and added back on. Americans ten