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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.
One of Pilgrim’s members this past week told me how on Wednesday morning the member had pointed out to another member that, despite the apparent outcome of the election the day before, the world had not come to an end. Indeed, the end of this world will not be marked primarily by the outcome of one nation’s political process, or by climate change, or even by a meteor, such as the one that was predicted to strike the planet on Tuesday but flew by harmlessly; but, the end of this world will be marked primarily by what today’s Gospel Reading described as the coming of the Bridegroom. And, we do well to take note that our Lord Jesus does not emphasize how, much less when, the world will end, but, with the so-called “Parable of the Ten Virgins”, our Lord Jesus emphasizes our being “Ready and watching for the Bridegroom”.
Today’s Gospel Reading comes in the middle of what is considered Jesus’s fifth and final discourse in St. Matthew’s Divinely-inspired Gospel account (Matthew 21:12- or 23:1-26:1), a section of teaching that centers on “the end times” or “the last things”, things like death, resurrection, and world judgment (Scaer, Discourses, 21, 343, 364). Our Lord Jesus was teaching His disciples about both the destruction of Jerusalem and His coming at the end of the age, and He told them that, since no one other than the Father knows the day and hour of that coming, that they should be ready and watching (Matthew 24:42, 44). Likewise in the parable we heard today, whatever kind of lamps or torches the ten virgins were using, whatever the wedding customs of Jesus’s day were, the point of the parable as Jesus Himself gives it, for His disciples then and for us today, is to be “Ready and watching for the Bridegroom”.
You and I are likely more concerned about things like the outcome of the national election and the spread of the coronavirus than we are concerned about being “Ready and watching for the Bridegroom”. Yes, who the president is and the spread of the coronavirus have some bearing on our everyday lives here and now, but our being “Ready and watching for the Bridegroom” will significantly affect our lives for all eternity. Are we more concerned about things here and now or about things there and then? Obviously we are not, like the wise virgins, to take lamps and flasks of oil and go out somewhere to meet the Bridegroom, but we are to remember that He is coming and to put our hope in Him. The Bridegroom’s final coming brings the kind of judgment the parable illustrates, between the foolish who were not ready and the wise who were ready, with the wise’s going in with the Bridegroom to the marriage feast and the foolish’s essentially being locked out apart from Him. Repentant believers do not need to fear that judgment unnecessarily, but, we might say, that we necessarily need to fear that judgment enough in order that we live our lives as repentant believers, taking Jesus’s words seriously and living in fellowship with His Church, regularly receiving His Means of Grace, which not only forgive us of our failures to repent and believe but also so enable us to be ready and watching.
In the parable, something caused that bridegroom to delay, and that delay arguably helped show the difference between the foolish virgins, who took no oil with them, and the wise virgins, who took flasks of oil with their lamps. Yet, I think we need to be careful when we apply the delay of the bridegroom in the parable to our Lord Jesus. What we might think of as a delay in our Lord Jesus’s final coming to us, Holy Scripture tells us is not slowness but patience, His not wishing that any should perish, but that all should reach repentance (2 Peter 3:9). Indeed, even as Jesus’s disciples in the Garden of Gethsemane were guilty of not watching as they should have watched (Matthew 26:38-41; confer Scaer, Discourses, 390; Gibbs ad loc Matthew 25:13, p.1314) but presumably repented and were forgiven, so also, when we repent and believe in Him, God forgives us who are guilty of not being ready and watching as we should be.
In the parable of today’s Gospel Reading there is a cry at midnight, “Here is the bridegroom!” Or, perhaps better, “Behold, the bridegroom!” (ASV, NASB). The word “behold” not only draws the virgins’ attention to the bridegroom, but the word “behold” also draws our attention to the bridegroom. The Old Testament had described God as a faithful husband to the people of Israel despite their unfaithfulness, but apparently not until earlier in St. Matthew’s Gospel account had that husband-wife relationship been applied to the Messiah, as the Lord Jesus “stunningly” applied it to Himself and the Church by calling Himself the Bridegroom (Matthew 9:15, per Gibbs, ad loc Mt 25:1-13, p.1322). God in human flesh, the Lord Jesus Christ loved the Church and gave Himself up for Her, that He might sanctify Her, that is, make Her holy, having cleansed Her by the washing of water with the word, that is, by Holy Baptism (Ephesians 5:25-26). The Bridegroom, our Lord Jesus Christ, came once in humility for us, to die on the cross in our place, the eternal death that we deserved on account of our sinful nature and all of our sins. When, enabled by God, we, with repentance and faith, apply His death to ourselves, then God forgives our sinful nature and all of our sins, whatever our sins might be. So, we do not need to fear when the Bridegroom, our Lord Jesus Christ, will come a final time in power and great glory (Matthew 24:30; Mark 13:26; Luke 21:27), also for us, both to judge the living and the dead and to eliminate the enemies of His Church once and for all.
In Holy Baptism, God has already effectively rescued us from death and the devil even now (Small Catechism, IV:6), and at the Font, as He puts His Triune Name on us, He also knows us and our names, unlike the foolish virgins, whom the bridegroom in the parable did not know. Through the pastors that He calls and ordains, God Himself individually absolves the sins we privately confess, and thereby God also admits us to the Sacrament of the Altar, the marriage feast of bread that is His Body given for us and wine that is His Blood shed for us, for the forgiveness of sins, and so also for life and salvation. Though somewhat imperfectly (Luke 13:26), the practice of closed communion here and now relates to the final judgment and the resulting closed communion in heaven for all eternity.
Although we do not, like the wise virgins in the parable of today’s Gospel Reading, take lamps and flasks of oil and go out to meet an ordinary bridegroom, our thoughts and words and deeds do reflect whether we are wise or foolish and so also whether or not we are “Ready and watching for the Bridegroom” Who is our Lord Jesus Christ. Enabled by God, we live humble lives of repentance and faith; we seek out and regularly receive His Means of Grace; we willingly suffer whatever He in His wisdom permits us to face, and we with courage persevere through it (Gibbs, ad loc Matthew 25:1-13, p.1323). Already now we have the joy and intimacy of the eternal wedding feast, and with eager anticipation and sure and certain hope we look primarily not to things here and now but to things there and then, when we will be blessed to experience that joy and intimacy most fully in bodies that are resurrected if necessary and transformed by the glory of God’s eternal presence (confer Revelation 19:6-9).
Ultimately, we do not put our trust in earthly rulers, whose plans perish and in whom there is no salvation, but we hope in the Lord, Who made heaven and earth, Who loves the righteous, and Who keeps faith forever (Psalm 146). Our Lord Jesus Christ, the Bridegroom, came once, comes now, and is coming again a final time. We do not know the day or the hour of that final coming, but we do not need to know them. At all times we heed His call to watch by being ready, now, before it is too late. We are saved by grace through faith in Him, and He enables us to be “Ready and watching for the Bridegroom”. He says, “Surely I am coming soon”, and, with the Church of all times and all places, we say, “Amen, come, Lord Jesus!” (Revelation 22:20).
Amen.
The peace of God, which passes all understanding, keep your hearts and minds in Christ Jesus. Amen.
+ + + Soli Deo Gloria + + +