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+ + + In Nomine Jesu + + +
Please join me in prayer: May the words of my mouth and the meditations of our hearts be pleasing in your sight, O Lord, our Rock and our Redeemer. Amen.
Dear Brothers and Sisters in Christ,
Grace to you and peace from God our Father and from the Lord Jesus Christ.
Have you ever played the game of “Hide and Seek”? If so, you know that typically those playing choose both some place as “home” and one player as “it”. The person who is “it” stays at “home”, closes his or her eyes, and counts loudly to some predetermined number, giving the other players that long to hide. After counting to that number and before going out to seek the other players, the person who is “it” typically yells out, “Ready or not here I come!” “Ready or not here I come”: in some sense that could also be said by the bridegroom in the so‑called “Parable of the Ten Virgins”, which we heard in today’s Gospel Reading. In the parable, the bridegroom came, and the virgins were “ready or not”, just as on the last day our Lord Jesus Christ will come for the final time, and we will be “ready or not”. This morning we consider today’s Gospel Reading under the title or theme of “Ready or Not”.
Today is one of the final three Sundays of the Church Year, on which we focus on the last things, such as the last day and our Lord Jesus Christ’s final coming. In this particular year of our three‑year series, our Gospel Readings are all from the 25th chapter of St. Matthew’s divinely‑inspired account, which chapter contains three “parables” about the Lord’s return, such as today’s “Parable of the Ten Virgins”. The chapter concludes Jesus’s Fifth Discourse in Matthew’s account, which final Discourse essentially began at the start of chapter 24, when Jesus’s disciples privately asked Him about the sign of His coming and of the end of the age.
In chapter 24, Jesus had told His disciples that no one other than God the Father knows the day and the hour (Matthew 24:36). Jesus had told them that His coming would be like the coming of the flood in the days of Noah, when the people were essentially unaware until the flood came and swept them all away (Matthew 24:37-39). Jesus had told His disciples that, since they do not know on what day He is coming, they should stay awake (or “watch”), as the master of a house would stay awake if he knew in what part of the night a thief was coming (Matthew 24:42-43). And, Jesus had told them that they must be ready, for His coming would be at an hour they do not expect, and He told a different parable in which a master returns home on a day when a servant does not expect him and at an hour he does not know (Matthew 24:44-51). Then, as St. Matthew uniquely records, Jesus told them “The Parable of the Ten Virgins” we heard this morning, which further drives home the need to watch (or “be ready”), for we know neither the day nor the hour.
Indeed, the parable’s one main point is that, because we do not know the day or the hour, we should always be ready. The five virgins without flasks of oil were foolishly not ready and ended up apart from the rest outside the marriage feast; the five virgins with flasks of oil were wisely ready and ended up with the bridegroom inside the marriage feast. We do not need to ask or answer questions such as why there were ten total virgins and five of each, whether the “lamps” were really lamps or torches, where the virgins were or where they were going, whether the light was needed for an outdoor procession or dance or an indoor dinner, whether or not the lamps were lit, what the oil might represent, why the bridegroom was delayed, what the sleep might represent, who makes the cry at midnight, whether or not the dealers were open, and whether or not the foolish virgins ever got a flask of oil. We do not need to ask or answer any of those questions. The parable simply illustrates one main aspect of the Kingdom of Heaven: as the bridegroom came, and the virgins were “ready or not”, so our Lord Jesus Christ will come, and we will be “ready or not”.
In many ways we are like Jesus’s disciples, who maybe were more concerned about days and times than about being ready. A poll more than one year ago suggested some 40 percent of Americans think they are living in the end times, but then faithful Christians have always known they live in the last days (Hebrews 1:2). For example, nearly 500 years ago, the Rev. Dr. Martin Luther, at table said that he thought Judgment Day was not more than 100 years away (cited by Plass, #2166, 697). So, we, too, are in the last days, and we cannot know the precise day and time, but, are we ready? In the parable, all ten of the virgins at least thought they were ready, until the coming of the bridegroom woke them up to trim their lamps and five found out they did not have enough oil. Like those five foolish virgins, some people today—maybe even some of us—might appear to be but not actually be part of the Church. They and we may lack the Holy Spirit, true faith, or its resulting good works. God alone may know! For example, earlier in St. Matthew’s account, in the First Discourse or Sermon on the Mount, Jesus said that not everyone would enter the Kingdom of Heaven but only those who did the will of His Father in heaven, that on the last day even to some who will claim to have prophesied, cast out demons, and done many mighty works in His Name He will say, “I never knew you, depart from me, you workers of lawlessness” (Matthew 7:21-34). Those who are wise, hear His words and do them (Matthew 7:24), they do not act, as the foolish virgins did, on their own expectations or otherwise ignore His Word, which the Bible links to the voice of the bridegroom and the presence of light.
Today’s Old Testament Reading also makes clear that an outward form of worship is not pleasing to God and that for such people the day of the Lord will be like going from bad to worse (Amos 5:18-24). Clearly there are two classes of people: foolish and wise, those who lack repentance, faith, and its good works and so are not ready, and those who have repentance, faith, and its good works and so are ready. Are you and I ready or not? Now is the time to be ready by repenting, believing, and doing good works, before our Lord comes the final time and it is too late.
Truly, the Bridegroom, our Lord Jesus Christ, God in the flesh, loved us, came once, and gave Himself up to death on the cross for us, and He graciously makes us holy by the washing of water with the word, so that we might be without spot or wrinkle or any such thing (Ephesians 5:25-27). At the Baptismal Font, we are cleansed from our sin and freed from the temporal and eternal death we deserve on account of our sin. There His Name is put on us, and our names are given to Him; there He knows us, and we know Him. Through Holy Baptism in some sense makes us ready (Matthew 3:3; Isaiah 40:3), and we continue that readiness with ongoing repentance, faith, and good works. When we turn in sorrow from our sin, trust God to forgive our sin for Jesus’s sake, and want to do better than to keep on sinning, then God forgives our sin. Not only does God forgive our sin through Holy Baptism, but He also forgives our sin through the preaching of His Word, through the Word’s application in individual Absolution to those who privately confess the sins they know and feel in their hearts, and through the Sacrament of the Altar, a foretaste of the coming marriage feast of the Lamb in His Kingdom that has no end.
We, who are ready for our Lord’s return, so live, now and always, in fellowship with Him and so also with His Church. He is God with us (Matthew 1:23), He who is with us always, even to the end of the age (Matthew 28:20), and we who are ready go with Him to the marriage feast, behind, as it were, a shut door. Even now the communion of His body and blood in bread and wine is closed to those who are obviously not ready as a part of the same fellowship. We who are ready live as members of His Church, but we still have our own personal responsibility and so must be individually vigilant, at the risk of at the last day losing our eternal communion with our Lord. As the Epistle Reading described, on that day, all believers, whether alive or dead, in resurrected bodies, will be caught up together (or “raptured”, as some say but misunderstand) to meet the Lord in the air and return to earth for eternity with Him (1 Thessalonians 4:13-18). And, looking forward to that time encourages us here and now, as we repent, believe, and do good works.
The game of “Hide and Seek” typically has near its beginning the cry “Ready or not here I come!” And, near the game’s end there may also be the cry something to the effect of “Ollie, Ollie, oxen free”, or perhaps more properly in German, “Alle, Alle auch sind frei”, which is to say that all who are still out hiding can at that time come home free of worry of being caught. If they leave their hiding place before then, they risk being caught. In the case of our eternal life, as today’s Gospel Reading makes clear, since we know neither the day nor the hour at which point we might be caught not ready, now is the time to be ready: to repent, believe, and do faith‑produced good works. God grant and preserve us in such a state of readiness that we may at the last enter His eternal wedding feast.
Amen.
The peace of God, which passes all understanding, keep your hearts and minds in Christ Jesus. Amen.
+ + + Soli Deo Gloria + + +