Last
Sunday of the Church Year – November 19th and 20th,
2016 – Mt. 25:1-13
In the Name of Christ Jesus, our Coming King +
In the Name of Christ Jesus, our Coming King +
And
here we are. The Last Sunday of the Church Year. It is the close of
another cycle of reading through the Scriptures. We have heard the
entire plan of salvation laid out, heard all that Christ Jesus has
done for us. And here, at the end, we are pointed forward, pointed
to the Last Day. It shall come – we do not know when – “Watch
therefore, for You know neither the day nor the hour.”
It’s that truth that we confess in the creed – He will come
again to judge the living and the dead. And to teach us, to prepare
us for His second coming, Christ Jesus tells us the parable of the
wise and foolish virgins.
“Then
the Kingdom of Heaven will be like ten virgins who took their lamps
and went to meet the bridegroom. Five of them were foolish, and five
were wise. For when the foolish took their lamps, they took no oil
with them, but the wise took flasks of oil with their lamps.”
One of the odd or strange things about living today, almost 2000
years after Christ first tells this story, is that we just don’t
get how incredibly stupid and foolish these foolish virgins are.
This is the ultimate “duh” story. If you were a virgin invited
to the wedding feast of someone rich and famous, you had one job –
you were there for one thing – to be a light bearer, to stand there
with a glowing lamp and look pretty. A glowing lamp. One that has
fuel. I’m trying to think of a modern equivalent of something that
would be just as flat out obvious and stupid. It would be like 11
men went onto the field to play football, but 5 were foolish and
didn’t bring their pads and helmets. Completely dumb.
And
this plays out in the next part: As the
bridegroom was delayed, they all became drowsy and slept. But at
midnight there was the cry, ‘Here is the bridegroom! Come out to
meet him.’ Then all those virgins rose and trimmed their lamps.
And the foolish said to the wise, ‘Give us some of your oil, for
our lamps are going out.’ But the wise answered, saying, ‘Since
there will not be enough for us and for you, go rather to the dealers
and buy for yourselves.’” And this
is part that always strikes us as odd – shouldn't they have shared,
made do with what they had? No, it doesn’t, it can’t work that
way. Boy, the other team is awfully big and I don’t have my helmet
- hey, I know, split your helmet in half and we can each wear a half,
isn’t that a brilliant idea? You are either ready for the wedding,
for the game, or you aren’t. If it’s the day of your wedding,
and one of your bridesmaids never bothered to buy her dress and
instead just wants to share a dress with one of the other
bridesmaids, she’s just an idiot.
And
so the foolish miss it. They knew the wedding was coming. They had
their lamps. But because of their folly, the are left out in the
cold. The wise are prepared, they follow the Bridegroom to the
party, to the marriage feast. The foolish are left with no one to
blame but themselves. They never got ready, they never cared, even
when the bridegroom was late and they had extra time.
So,
in the Church, for us here today, what separates the wise from the
foolish? What distinguishes those who are prepared for Christ’s
coming and those who aren’t? Today, just as it was in Christ’s
day, those who have heard the Word of God, heard the preaching of the
Gospel, can be either wise or foolish. Matthew 24 and 25 are all
about the second coming and the end times – the teaching, the
warning, the heads up is given. And even Christ Jesus knew that
there would be those there hearing Him who just didn’t care. Who
would smile and nod, and then go on with life with nary a thought.
And we see the same today. What is the difference? In the parable
it’s oil – do you have your oil or not? Did you bring your pads
and helmet? Wait a second, we heard a few minutes ago about armor –
“Let us be sober, having put on the
breastplate of faith and love, and for a helmet the hope of
salvation.” The difference is this –
the wise pay attention to Christ and His forgiveness, they receive
His salvation that He proclaims and preaches and gives here in this
place, gives through Baptism, through preaching, through the
forgiveness proclaimed here, through the Supper. That is what gives
us and builds us up in faith and love and makes us ready for Christ
to come, that is what gives us salvation. Everything rests, hinges,
upon hearing and receiving Christ’s gifts.
And
now, we get to the dangerous part of this sermon, of preaching upon
this text. We’ve got the text sorted out, we see what is going on…
and now to apply it. And there’s a danger, a simple but terrible
way we could apply this. We could turn this into a giant lament and
gripe session about the foolish, about all the people who aren’t
here, about the people who would say oh yes, yes, I’m a member at
Trinity, but haven’t darkened the door in ages. There are members
here I haven't met in a year and a half, folks who say that they are
members but probably don't even know my last name. And I could rail
against them angrily – grr, naughty people. I could be sad and
wring my hands – oh, those poor fools. And either way I would just
end up patting all of us on the back and saying “see how good and
great you are because you are here today” and sigh and be full of
self-satisfaction. Except, none of that has to do with Christ Jesus
and forgiveness. None of that would be oil for the lamps, pads or
helmets for the game. Even though Christ makes a distinction between
the wise and foolish, dear friends, never let this text become an “us
versus” them thing. The point is this – Christ is coming, and
while Satan wants you unprepared, Christ prepares you.
Christ
is coming. We confess this truth over and over again. And yet what
does Satan, what does society tell us? That we are stupid to believe
this – that it’s a waste of time. It's been thousands of years
and nothing. As though the Scriptures aren’t chalk full of things
taking quite a long time and the faithful waiting. But we are
bombarded by this, we are attacked and assailed by those who want to
cause doubts. And it wears on us – and as the text says, we become
drowsy. And so we must hear the Word. We must be awoken again with
the call, “Here
is the bridegroom, come out to meet him.” Christ
has said He will come again, and so He
shall. And yet, even life itself in this world tries to drag us down.
Aches and pains, death, mourning. We all see it, more than we want
to. Isaiah laments this reality – build a house and someone else
inhabits it; plant a vineyard and someone else gets the grapes, labor
in vain, bear children for calamity. Things in this life go
terribly, and we can be tempted to just not care, to run off and try
to find whatever fleeting pleasure and joy we can – eat, drink, and
be merry for tomorrow we die. Run around like mad to make this
Holiday season the perfect ho-ho-ho time of joy and wonderfully
perfect because we had better have fun or else. And it doesn’t
work. Something’s going to go wrong with Thanksgiving; December’s
going to be a mess as it always is. The same old family fights will
probably be fought again this year. Because that’s life in a
fallen world.
“The
kingdom of heaven will be like ten virgins who took their lamps and
went to meet the bridegroom.” There is
more. As much as Satan and the world and our own dying flesh try to
make us believe that this junk in life is all that there is, there is
more. Christ Jesus knows – He understands what you see, what you
experience. He created this world, and on the very day that sin
first messed with His creation, His coming was proclaimed – He
would come to crush the head of Satan, to put to right what had gone
wrong. And He knows what life is like here – He Himself took on
human flesh, became man, was born, had to cry to get fed, had to wait
to have His diapers changed. He grew and all the junk we see, He got
too, He went through. He hungered, He thirst, He ached, He was
betrayed and mocked and ignored by friends. I am reminded of John 6,
a great chapter – Jesus feeds the 5000 thousand. This should be an
utter triumph. But instead, they want to make Him an earthly King by
force, and He runs away. Then He walks on water, and the disciples
are afraid. Then He proclaims that He is the Bread of Life – and
people complain about the preaching. And we hear this – verse 66 –
“After this many of His disciples turned
back and no longer walked with Him.”
Jesus knows exactly what your life, what life here is like. He saw
it, He lived it. And in one of the more poignant passages of
Scripture, we hear this, words that we sometimes sing in service:
“So Jesus said to the twelve, ‘Do you
want to go away as well?’ Simon Peter answered Him, ‘Lord, to
whom shall we go? You have the words of eternal life.’”
From
5000 down to twelve. Even down to just 5 wise virgins. And yet,
what is the hinge? The words of eternal life – the words
proclaiming the marriage feast of the Lamb that shall endure for all
eternity. Jesus Christ, true God and true Man, came and suffered and
died, took up all that we face in this world, and He rose to give you
eternal life. To fill your lamps with oil. To fill you with
Himself, with His forgiveness – because He Himself is the Light of
the World, and in Him, you are the light of the world, for He has
given all that He is to you. Over and against everything we see,
this truth remains. Because of Christ Jesus, you are forgiven, and
He shall come again, and you will be raised. Come gather where His
Word is proclaimed, come to where His Body is given for you, His
blood poured out for you, rest in Him – and He will see that you
are well and thoroughly prepared for that day when He shall come
again to bring you with joy to the heavenly wedding of the Lamb and
His Bride, to His feast that will have no end. In the Name of Christ
Jesus, our Coming King +
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