The Last Sunday of the Church Year - 11/23/08

The Church Season of Trinity
The Last Sunday in the Church Year, One Year Series
Our Savior Lutheran Church, Midland, MI (November 23, 2008)

“Keep Watch”

Readings:
Psalm 149
Isaiah 65:17:25
1 Thessalonians 5:1-11
Matthew 25:1-13

Sermon Form Deductive

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Grace, mercy and peace be to you from the Father
and the Son and the Holy Spirit, Amen

The text for today is as recorded in the Gospel Lesson from the 25th chapter of St. Matthew, especially the following verses:

Matthew 25:1-13

“At that time the kingdom of heaven will be like ten virgins who took their lamps and went out to meet the bridegroom. 2 Five of them were foolish and five were wise. 3 The foolish ones took their lamps but did not take any oil with them. 4 The wise, however, took oil in jars along with their lamps. 5 The bridegroom was a long time in coming, and they all became drowsy and fell asleep. 6 “At midnight the cry rang out: ‘Here’s the bridegroom! Come out to meet him!’ 7 “Then all the virgins woke up and trimmed their lamps. 8 The foolish ones said to the wise, ‘Give us some of your oil; our lamps are going out.’ 9 “ ‘No,’ they replied, ‘there may not be enough for both us and you. Instead, go to those who sell oil and buy some for yourselves.’ 10 “But while they were on their way to buy the oil, the bridegroom arrived. The virgins who were ready went in with him to the wedding banquet. And the door was shut. 11 “Later the others also came. ‘Sir! Sir!’ they said. ‘Open the door for us!’ 12 “But he replied, ‘I tell you the truth, I don’t know you.’ 13 “Therefore keep watch, because you do not know the day or the hour.

In the Name of the Father, and of the Son and of the Holy Spirit

In the Gospel lesson Jesus tells a parable of ten virgins, five of which are foolish and five are wise. Actually, our English translation is too kind. The word which we read as foolish is but one definition, other definitions may include dull-witted, absurd, having a physical or mental deficiency, or the downright inability to judge rightly. Or as one biblical dictionary put it, these unwise virgins would always be, “fools. This is their unalterable destiny. They are excluded from the company of the wise, and, if this is civic society, they are a-social people against whom society must be on guard and whom it must drive out”(TDNT 4:836B) Anyway you look at it, in today’s society this would not be a good way to start a public speech, it would be deemed politically incorrect, how dare Jesus tell a story about those who are trying to do the best with what they are given. Yet Jesus was spot on, He told this story for a reason and lest we too soon forget, this parable is about 10 people preparing for a wedding feast. Even if they did not have the same mental or physical ability, they all started out this parable the same. All ten had lamps and all ten went out to meet the bridegroom. But even though they started out the same they soon departed company because some did not have the wherewithal to endure to the end and ultimately they could not..

KEEP WATCH

This parable is taken from a sermon by Jesus and it is about the end of the world. This teaching is a small portion of two chapters wherein Jesus tells us of the signs of His second coming. (24:4–31) He first uses the illustration of the fig tree (32–35), then He tells us that the last days will be like those at the time of Noah (37–44), then He relates the parable of the talents (25:14–30), and He ends His discussion with picture of judgment day, when all people will be separated as a shepherd divides the sheep from the goats (31–46).

In the middle of these lessons about the end of the world, Jesus speaks the words of our text. This is parable is based on the Jewish marriage customs of Jesus’ day. There was first a religious ceremony of betrothal in which the couple were legally bound together as man and wife. Weeks or months later, the bridegroom went to the house of the bride in order to bring her to his home. Then as the bridegroom would approach, the bride’s attendants, the virgins, went out to meet the groom and escort him to the bride. They took their lamps to light the way and to provide festive lights for the happy occasion.

In this case there were ten who would have been the bride’s attendants, who left to meet the bridegroom. It is easy to see why five of these attendants were called foolish: they didn’t take any extra fuel along with them for their lamps. The other five were wise in taking additional oil with them. But the bigger point here is that they all started out the same, they all looked the same and by all outward appearances they were the same. But they and the conclusion of this parable reveals that they were not the same. And so the true meaning of the parable is revealed. For like the ten virgins, all church members also look pretty much the same. They all seem to profess to be Christians and look forward to Christ’s return. But even the non-believers in this world know that not all church members are true Christians. And that is what Jesus was pointing out when he said that five of these virgins were foolish.

There are people who are in the church who are Christians, there are people in the church who are not Christians. Some people act like they are Christians and yet they are not. We would point at them and call them hypocrites smiling with there faces but stabbing another in the back with their eyes, or condemning another with their thoughts.

Yet the Lord is not just referring to hypocrites here, some of the hypocrites are the ones doing the most pointing. There are some who do expect the Lord’s return. But, the foolish are those who think they are prepared for the Lord, but really they are not. Perhaps some of them are like those in the parable of the sower and the seed, who believe for a while but in time of temptation fall away. Perhaps some of them are the lukewarm Christians who attend church only out of habit. Among the foolish are those who neglect their Bible reading, those who neglect their attendance at worship, and those who don’t make diligent use of the means of grace, meaning their reception of the Lord’s Supper. To put it bluntly their supply of faith is not maintained and replenished by the means of grace, God’s Word and His Sacrament.

So when the bridegroom Jesus Christ returns unexpectedly they will come up short. We’ve all probably heard once or twice how people try to covey their faith onto others. And by this I don’t mean sharing faith with others, I mean saying that your faith saves another. Like this, Old Joe wasn’t much of a churchgoer, but you know his wife and kids were very faithful, and his parents too, so maybe Joe wasn’t such a bad guy since everybody around him was very faithful. That would be like going to school and saying to a teacher, “You know I don’t do my homework, I don’t study, I don’t prepare for class, and don’t do well on my tests, but everybody in my family is pretty smart and gets good grades so you can give me good grades too.” No that wouldn’t fly, you can’t borrow from what someone else has done, you stand on your own merit, but that certainly does not impede our attempts to lean on the work of others.

Just like the wise virgins who could not share their oil. Each and every person must believe for themselves. A wife cannot give her faith to her husband, nor can a parent give their faith to their children. But, a parent can, as it says in Proverbs, “train a child in they way he should go, and when he’s old he will not turn from it.”(Pvb 22:6) So, if we are going to help others, we must help them now, before the Bridegroom Jesus Christ comes. Because when He does come each will need to stand before Him based upon only their own faith, and not the faith of others. The bridegroom will know you only by your own faith.

When you are known by God, you belong to Him and He gives you everything that is His. And to be known by God is a great comfort. He has said, “Fear not, for I have redeemed you; I have called you by Name; you are mine” (Isa 43:1). Contrast those loving words with the terror of the Law which God says to the foolish virgins, “I don’t know you.” The inattentiveness and distraction of the five foolish virgins do not merely lead to embarrassment, but it leads to a terrible and eternal doom. The doors of heaven are shut to them. They were not admitted to the marriage feast of the Lamb. The Lord does not consider their outward religious profession. The Lord says he doesn’t know them, and they are closed out of heaven forever. If we have no other claim than that we lived like Christians, if the outer shell of Christianity is not filled by true faith in Jesus Christ, we will be excluded from the wedding banquet, the door will be shut and will not be opened.

So what do we have to do to make sure that we have enough oil of faith for today, and enough oil of faith to await for Christ’s to return? Your faith is strengthened by the hearing the Word of God as you read God’s Word in the Bible or as you hear it proclaimed here each week. Your faith is renewed and refreshed as you receive the Holy Supper of our Lord. In the Sacrament of Holy Communion Christ’s true body and true blood gives you the forgiveness of sins. And as Luther states in the Small Catechism about this supper of our Lord, “that person is truly worthy and well prepared who has faith in these words: “Given and shed for you for the forgiveness of sins.”(SC)

Those who despise all these free gifts of God, who look like they are prepared but really are not, will one day stand before a heavenly door that is closed and just as in the parable the reply will come, ‘I tell you the truth, I don’t know you.’(v.12) But for those who are worthy and have been prepared by receiving God’s gifts, those who have not despised all that He freely gives will find a different reception. For Christ is the one who will keep watch for He said, “I am the way the truth and the life, no one comes to the Father except through me.”(John 14:6) And His way was the way of the Cross, His cross of death is your door to heaven. So only through Christ is anyone worthy and well prepared, and He is the bridegroom who will arrive and usher you through that heavenly door which will be shut long after you have been seated for an eternal banquet feast. Amen.

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