Being Prepared
Matthew 25:1-13
In the name of the Father and of the + Son and of the Holy Spirit.
St. Matthew 25:13 “Watch therefore, for you know neither the day nor the hour in which the Son of Man is coming.”
Dear fellow redeemed in Christ our Lord… Today is the last Sunday of the Church year – the end of another 12-month cycle where we have followed and studied the life and teachings of Jesus. We have heard His continual call in the preaching of the Gospel to repent of our sins, to believe in Him for the forgiveness of sins, and that our sins have been bought and paid for by Christ. We have received that forgiveness in Holy Baptism, in the Absolution, and in the Sacrament of the Altar, where He has given us His very body and blood for forgiveness, life, and salvation. We have taken counsel from His warnings, we have taken comfort in His promises, and we have taken guidance from His Holy Spirit, who has renewed and strengthened us in faith, in hope, and in love.
And starting next Sunday, if God allows, we will do it all over again. And, Lord willing, we will keep repeating this blessed cycle until Christ the heavenly Bridegroom finally comes to take us, His Bride, the Church, into the new heavens and the new earth.
In the Gospel for today Jesus pleads with His Church to “watch therefore, for you know neither the day nor the hour in which the Son of Man is coming.” Watch. Keep watching. Be alert at all times. The day is coming like a thief in the night.
Those who have had any firearms training are probably familiar with the four levels of awareness or states of readiness. They are: unaware, aware, alert, and alarmed. I’ll spare you the firearms applications and apply it directly to the state of readiness for Christ’s coming.
Some, those who don’t believe in Christ or care about His Word, are living in perpetual “unawareness.” These are folks who are oblivious to the truth about who God is, who Jesus is, and what He has done for us. They don’t believe He is coming for judgment at all, and so they go on living in their arrogance, idolatry, and unbelief. They are “in darkness,” as Paul wrote in today’s Epistle, and the day of the Lord will come upon them for their eternal destruction.
Many Christians also fit into that “unaware” category. They are Christians in name only, caring nothing about the doctrine of Christ. They might have a general idea of who Jesus – something they have made up in their own heads – and they are content with their made-up version of Jesus and consider themselves to be Christians. However, they have no awareness of their great need for the forgiveness of sins, nor faith in the blood of Christ to cleanse them of it. They think of Christianity as just one of many different paths to heaven. Such people are unaware that Christ is coming like a thief, and they are unaware of what is necessary to be prepared for that day.
But you, dear fellow redeemed, are not like those who don’t know the thief is coming. You are sons of light, and sons of the day. Even though no one knows for sure WHEN that the day is coming, you know it IS coming because you never stop hearing about it here in this place.
How foolish we would be, then, not to keep watch, not to be alert, not to be focused and prepared to meet the Bridegroom when He comes…like five of the ten virgins in Jesus’ parable were unprepared, not watching, not alert.
The ten young ladies all knew that the Bridegroom was coming. They were aware and they were eager to go out and meet Him. But not all of them kept watch, not all of them prepared for His coming. Five of them were wise, and five were foolish. Half of them were not ready when He came, and were therefore locked out of the wedding feast forever.
Consider that for a moment… As Jesus describes the times leading up to His coming at the end of the age, He doesn’t depict for us a Christian Church that is mostly prepared, in a state of readiness, where practically all Christians are going to go out to meet the Bridegroom with joy upon His arrival, with just a few stragglers who are oblivious and unprepared. Instead, He shows us a Christian Church in which half of the Christians are caught unalert and unprepared at His Advent. This is nothing for us to pass over lightly; we ought not pretend that we can just go on with our earthly lives and stop caring about His coming or stop preparing for it. That would be foolish, not wise.
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What made five of the virgins wise? They took oil in their vessels with their lamps. They were aware that the Bridegroom was coming. They were aware of their need to have burning lamps in order to meet Him and accompany Him upon His arrival. They were aware that they might be waiting awhile, and they were aware that the oil that was in their lamps would eventually be consumed by the flame.
Putting all those things together, they became alert – alert to the necessity of bringing more fuel along with them, enough to keep their lamps burning, enough to get them through the night and to wait for however long it was going to take. And it did get them through the night, so that, when the midnight call rang out, they were ready to go straight out to meet the bridal procession.
The foolish virgins, on the other hand, took no extra oil along with them. Notice that Jesus doesn’t say that they forgot to take extra oil, or that they had no opportunity to acquire extra oil. The only conclusion, therefore, was that they chose not to take it; they neglected to take it, even though they knew their lamps couldn’t possibly stay lit all night long. They were counting on the Bridegroom to arrive early, but they were as far off in their prediction of when the bridegroom was coming as political pollsters spouting off about election results. They assumed they would have plenty of oil to last; they assumed that they knew the exact hour of his coming. But He didn’t come early and they didn’t have oil to last… and their lamps went out. Suddenly, they went straight from being vaguely aware that He was coming, shot right past the alert stage, and went straight to being alarmed at His arrival.
And they should be alarmed. While the five wise virgins accompanied the Bridegroom into the wedding hall, the five foolish ones scrambled to find a seller of oil, but they were too late. And when they finally did show up at the wedding hall, the door was already closed, and they were locked out…
Locked out of the wedding hall, just like the rest of the world, even though they started out as friends and servants of the Bridegroom… Locked out of the wedding hall, no longer acknowledged by the Bridegroom, just as all those who fail to watch for Christ’s coming will be denied by Christ, locked out of heaven and sentenced to eternal darkness and torment in hell because they neglected the means by which they should keep their lamps burning.
So, what are these precious, burning lamps, which alone are required for entrance into eternal life? They are the burning lamps of faith. Not just any faith, of course, but faith in the true God – Father, Son, and Holy Spirit. And not just the knowledge of who this God is, but the reliance on this God and the trust in this God to save us poor sinners, who deserve only His wrath and punishment, for the sake of Christ alone, who died for our sins and was raised to life for our justification. It’s as simple as John 3:16: “For God so loved the world that He gave His only-begotten Son, that whoever believes in Him should not perish but have everlasting life. For God did not send His Son into the world to condemn the world, but that the world through Him might be saved.”
Hear and understand what the Holy Spirit teaches us in today’s Gospel. There is no such thing as “once saved, always saved,” or “once a believer, always a believer.” On the contrary, many who have made a good beginning, believing in Christ for salvation, have later made shipwreck of their faith. In order for faith to remain, in order to persevere in the faith until the end, a ready supply of oil is essential.
That oil is the Gospel as it is preached and as it is administered in the Sacraments. The vessels that hold it are the ministers of the Word, whom God has called and given to His Church to, what did Jesus say, “feed His lambs” and to “take care of His sheep” until He comes. “Let the word of Christ dwell in you richly in all wisdom, teaching and admonishing one another in psalms and hymns and spiritual songs, singing with grace in your hearts to the Lord” (Col 3:16). “As newborn babes, desire the pure milk of the word, that you may grow thereby, if indeed you have tasted that the Lord is gracious” (I Pet 2:2-3).
Attending the Divine Service regularly is an integral part of being not just aware of Jesus’ coming, but alert and ready. Of course, not just coming, but listening to Jesus, trusting in Jesus, living in daily contrition and repentance. Here we hold out our beggarly hand and seek mercy and charity from Jesus. That is being alert and prepared.
Dear fellow redeemed, let not the concerns and cares of this life keep you from hearing the Gospel. The Christian life is not like a flash of light that burns brightly for a moment and then you go to heaven. Rather, it is the slow and steady flame of a lamp that needs to keep burning as you walk in great weakness here below, fighting constantly against the devil, the world, and your own sinful flesh, bearing the cross patiently, always watching, always alert, knowing that Christ will come soon. And “soon” just might be today, or it might be tomorrow, or next week, or next month, or next year, or not for a hundred years. Either way, we are to be prepared.
And you ARE prepared by Christ your Savior and Redeemer. You are prepared as He continually feeds you with His preached Gospel and His sacramental gifts – the means by which He delivers His forgiveness to you which He purchased for you by His suffering and death on the cross.
Those who are wise shall shine like the brightness of the firmament, and those who turn many to righteousness like the stars forever and ever. Take the wisdom God has provided again today. You are aware of what is coming. You are sons of light and sons of the day. Therefore, let us not sleep, as others do, but let us watch and be sober… Let us who are of the day be sober, putting on the breastplate of faith and love, and as a helmet the hope of salvation. For God did not appoint us to wrath, but to obtain salvation through our Lord Jesus Christ, who died for us, that whether we wake or sleep, we should live together with Him.
In the name of the Father and of the + Son and of the Holy Spirit.
