Last Sunday Matthew 25:1-13 (2021)

Watchful

I Thess 5:1-11; 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…  We heard it last week from St. Peter, and we hear it again today from St. Paul: “The day of the Lord comes as a thief in the night.”  Our Lord Himself says the same thing in the book of Revelation (3:3), “Behold, I am coming as a thief.”  Now that certainly is an odd sort of image to associate with our Savior, isn’t it?  But there is something for us to learn from the fact that our Lord does indeed come to us like a bandit, like a criminal, like a thief.

Thievery is something we would more readily associate with the devil, for Satan is indeed the thief and swindler of all of humanity.  He came to us in the garden like a con-man, flattering with his tongue and smooth-talking worse than a used car salesman.  He told our first parents that they were missing out on a great deal that God was keeping to Himself: they could be life God!  If they would just eat of the forbidden fruit, then they would be like God themselves.  Turning them from God’s words to his own deceitful words, the devil robbed them blind.  Enticing them to try to be like God, he stole away their humanity and the glory in which they were created.  He pilfered and plundered their very lives.

That is why you, sons of Adam and daughters of Eve, find yourselves in your present fallen state.  The truth is that we are now less than human; we are a disfigured shadow of what we were created to be.  We can sometimes feel that in our very souls when we know that things just aren’t right.  This inhumanity shows itself in our relationships with others – in anger and disrespect and lusts and jealousies and petty grudges and gossip.  These are things we must repent of daily.

And this inhumanity shows itself in our relationship with God, too.  Instead of being human, instead of being creatures under a Creator and honoring Him above all things as per the First Commandment, we would rather be like God; we would rather run our own lives, we would rather do things our own way, and  we would rather follow our own ideas, much like our very first parents.  And the result for us is the same as it was for Adam, “Dust you are, and to dust you shall return” (Gen 3:19).  We have been robbed by the serpent; we have been mugged and left to die.

However, just as God often punishes one thief by another thief in this world so that the robber ends up losing what he stole, so also the devil is punished by God in the sending of His Son as a thief.  The Son of God became the Son of man for that very purpose – to steal and snatch back our lost humanity from the evil one and to restore us to fellowship with God again.

Just think of how our Lord entered into this world; it was not with great fanfare.  Instead, He came, if you will, like a thief – quietly, hidden in the shadows, with nobody but some shepherds noticing His arrival.  Jesus came on the scene under cover, secretly, like a holy burglar, to win back for you what the devil stole away.

Our Lord already began to do that in the very act of becoming man.  By taking on your body and soul, Jesus redeemed and cleansed your humanity with His divine holiness.  God has greatly exalted you by becoming not an angel or any other creature but a true man, your truest blood brother.  He partook fully of your humanity so that in Him you might become truly human again.

Jesus was born like a thief, and He also died as one.  He was crucified between two robbers; in fact, that is what He was, a robber.  For not only did He come to rob the devil of his victory over you, He accomplished that by robbing you of your sin.  He stole away from you every uncleanness, He robbed from you every damnable failure to love, He pilfered from you every hurtful and evil thing that has been done to you.  He robbed you of it all, He took it as His own, and He demolished it in His death.  Remember, that it was through the tree in the garden that Satan conquered man; and so it was also by a tree, the holy cross, that Christ conquered Satan and reconciled man to God again.  It was by death that Satan stole away man’s glory, and it is by the death of Christ and His resurrection to life again that the glory of man is recaptured and your humanity is restored.

And today’s Epistle tells us that there is one more thing that our Lord is going to do like a thief: He is going to come back to this world suddenly and unexpectedly.  We know that a robber doesn’t announce when he’s coming; he tries to catch people unawares – that’s the game.  In fact, Jesus said in Matthew 24, “If the master of the house had known what hour the thief would come, he would have watched and not allowed his house to be broken into.  Therefore, you also be ready, for the Son of Man is coming at an hour you do not expect” (Mt 24:43-44).  

Think about that; if you learned that sometime tonight someone was going to try to break into your house and steal all your valuables, you would most certainly take steps to make sure that didn’t happen, wouldn’t you?  You would be awake and standing watch around the clock, perhaps even with your trusty firearm.  You would be prepared to “greet” the thief upon his arrival.

Well, the same sort of thing is true with the Day of the Lord.  Jesus has said that He is coming back.  He said that He will return to judge the living and the dead, a truth we confess each week in the Creed.  We don’t know when that is going to be; only God knows that.  But He has said, “Surely, I am coming quickly” (Rev. 22:20).   Our job, therefore, is to watch for Christ’s return as diligently as if we were watching for a thief coming to our house, a thief we knew was coming.  We are to be ready and prepared for Jesus’ arrival, for it could be at any time.  You might say that when you least expect it, expect it.  

We are to be on guard, then, against being lulled into a sense of complacency while we wait, going about our business and our daily lives as if none of this even mattered.  This is what Paul speaks of in the Epistle, “For when they say, ‘Peace and safety!’ then sudden destruction comes upon them, as labor pains upon a pregnant woman.  And they shall not escape.”  Beware of that worldly way of thinking which lives for the moment but with no view toward Jesus’ return.  “Everything’s just fine.  Why should I be preoccupied with the coming of the Lord?  I’ve got things to do, places to go, people to see.”  But that, dear friends, is the devil’s thinking; it is the carelessness of unbelief.  Repent of that.

And that was precisely the attitude of the five foolish virgins in today’s Gospel.  They thought they had their bases covered.  They had a little oil in their lamps.  Why overdo it?  Why burden themselves with too much oil?  Lighten up!  Live a little!  We have all the time in the world!

The lamps in the parable are the Word of Christ. For Psalm 119:105 teaches us, “Your Word is a lamp to my feet and a light to my path.”  The oil in the lamps is the Holy Spirit, who creates and sustains the flame of faith in Christ.  It is the height of foolishness to fail to give proper attention to Christ’s Word and the working of the Holy Spirit through that Word.  It is extremely foolish to ignore the Lord’s preaching and the Lord’s Supper or merely go through the motions.  When these instruments of the Holy Spirit are neglected, the flame of faith is in danger of going out.

The foolish thought they had their spiritual life all together, but they were not prepared for a delay; they were not ready or able to watch for the long haul.  And then the call finally came at midnight; time had run out, and the foolish were left in a panic, scrambling to get oil, banging on a locked door saying “Lord, Lord, open to us!” and hearing the terrifying words, “I don’t know you.”

Please remember that none of us knows either when Christ is returning or when the day of our own death will be.  Therefore, as we prayed in today’s Introit from Psalm 39, “Yahweh, make me to know my end, and what is the measure of my days, that I may know how frail I am.  My age is as nothing before you; certainly every man at his best state is but vapor.”  

On your own you are nothing but a vapor, a dark mist.  But Christ has enlightened you with the gift of His Spirit in the waters of Holy Baptism.  That’s why Paul says in the epistle, “You, brethren, are not in darkness, so that this Day should overtake you as a thief.  You are all sons of light and sons of the day.”  For you have been united with Christ, who is the Son of light.  Therefore, “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.”

That, then, is the way of the five wise virgins.  Those who are wise know in no uncertain terms that there is nothing more important as the arrival of the bridegroom.  The wise tend to their daily callings and enjoy the good gifts of creation, and they do so always with an eye toward Jesus’ second and final return which is what they are really living for and watching for. 

The wise do not want to cut it close when it comes to the oil in their lamps; they want to have oil enough and more.  Like the early Church in Acts 2:42, “they continued steadfastly in the apostles’ doctrine and fellowship, in the breaking of bread, and in prayers.”  And that is nothing less than the Divine Service where we hear “the apostles’ doctrine” which they received from Christ, the “fellowship” which is the interaction we have with God’s Word in the Divine Service, the “breaking of bread” which is the Lord’s Supper, and “the prayers,” which, of course, is our coming before God’s throne of grace through Christ with our petitions of need for ourselves and others.  The wise seek to heed the words of St. Paul in Colossians 3:2-4, “Set your mind on things above, not on things on the earth.  For you died, and your life is hidden with Christ in God.  When Christ who is our life appears, then you also will appear with Him in glory.”

To the foolish, the wise probably seemed way over-prepared, lugging around those extra jars of oil along with their lamps.  But in the end their wisdom was vindicated as they joined in the bridegroom’s procession and entered into the wedding hall.  So also, we Christians may appear to be overdoing it, going to Divine Service each week, meditating on God’s Word, praying and watching for Christ’s return, when we could be doing so many other things.

But in the end, such wisdom will be vindicated when our Bridegroom returns to bring us into the new heavens and the new earth in which there is no more sorrow or crying or pain or death, but only perfect joy in God’s eternal presence.  “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” (I Thess 5:9-10).

Brothers and sisters in Christ, God has granted you to be among those who are wise.  It is the Holy Spirit who has made you wise unto salvation through Gospel of Christ the crucified.  “Assuredly,” the Lord says, “I know you in your baptism.  I have forgiven you and redeemed you and claimed you as my own.”  Jesus is the One who day by day and week by week gives you His Word and Spirit, and you have plenty of oil to burn for a lifetime of watching for His return.  Use it wisely.

By His gifts of Word and Sacrament the Lord Himself makes you ready for the wedding feast on the Last Day; Christ prepares you for it by giving you a foretaste of that feast each week in Holy Communion.  The Gospel cry rings out again in this place today, “Behold, the bridegroom is coming!  Go out to meet Him at His holy altar!”  And by God-given faith you will not be surprised or caught off guard at Jesus’ second coming because you have long been in the habit of going out to meet him in His Divine Service.

The Lord will indeed come like a thief in the night.  Thanks and praise be to our good and gracious God who gives us His readiness and enables us to watch and to be ready that we may rejoice in that day.

In the name of the Father and of the Son and of the Holy Spirit.