Then the kingdom of heaven will be like this. Ten bridesmaids took their lamps and went to meet the bridegroom. Five of them were foolish, and five were wise. When the foolish took their lamps, they took no oil with them, but the wise took flasks of oil with their lamps. Matthew 25:1-4 (NRSV)
At just about every wedding I have ever conducted as a pastor, I have almost always seen a latecomer sneaking into the church in the middle of the wedding service. But I have never seen a bridesmaid come late to a wedding that she is in. But in this parable Jesus tells a story about five bridesmaids who ended up being so late for the wedding that they missed it completely.
Unlike our weddings today which are scheduled to start promptly at a certain time, weddings in Jesus’ day didn’t really have a definite starting time. People back then weren’t bound to the clock as tightly as we are today. Since their weddings were held at night, one of the duties of the bridesmaids was to carry the lamps that lit the way for the wedding processional at it made its way to the bride’s house. Then, when the wedding party arrived, the bride’s parents would place her hand into the hand of the groom, and together they would leave hand in hand for the wedding banquet, where feasting and celebrating would last as long as 7 or even 14 days.
I once read that God calls us Christians to live as if Christ is coming back tomorrow. That is what this parable is all about. It’s about being ready and prepared to meet Christ whenever that may be. The earliest Christians (including the people Matthew originally wrote his Gospel to) fully expected that Christ would return very quickly, in just a few years after He ascended into heaven. As those “few years” turned into decades, and the years continued to pass, already in the first century some believers were starting to question whether Christ ever would return. The apostle Peter answered that question in his Second Letter as he says,
But do not overlook this one fact, beloved, that with the Lord one day is as a thousand years, and a thousand years as one day. The Lord is not slow to fulfill His promise as some count slowness, but is patient toward you, not wishing that any should perish, but that all should reach repentance. (2 Peter 3:8-9)
None of us knows when Christ is going to return and meet us...even as none of us knows when we are going to die and meet Christ. I once had a vicar (a seminary intern) who was a “second career” pastor. After he retired from over 20 years as a police office, he entered the seminary to study to become a pastor. In one of his sermons he said that as a police office he had worked many traffic accidents. And then he said that he had never worked a traffic accident where a man had left for work that morning and said to his wife, “Well, today I’ll be killed in a car crash on my way into work.” No, he said, traffic accidents happen suddenly and without warning...just as Jesus’ return (His Second Coming) will come upon us sudvery good word for all of us. Life is limited – whether it’s the day of Christ’s return or the day we return to Christ: Life is limited.
The bridesmaids in Jesus’ story all knew that the groom was coming...sometime. They all met at the designated spot to wait for the groom’s arrival. They all brought their lamps so they could escort the groom as he processed down the dark streets to the home of his bride. Five of them came prepared with extra oil for their lamps, just in case the groom was delayed, which he was. As the evening wore on all ten of the bridesmaids fell asleep. Then at midnight the cry rang out: The bridegroom is coming! They all jumped up and added oil to their lamps. But the five foolish bridesmaids realized they didn’t have any more oil. When they asked the other five if they could borrow some of theirs, they said, “We’d really like to help you, but if we give you our extra oil then we won’t have any for our lamps; go into town and buy some more oil.” So they did -- but while they were gone the groom arrived and the five bridesmaids who had brought the extra oil with them led him in the wedding procession to the bride’s home. And those foolish, unprepared bridesmaids missed the wedding and were locked out.
The point of this parable is Jesus’ call for us to be prepared to meet Him. The point of this parable is: Live as if Christ is coming back tomorrow. That is what Jesus says to us in the last verse of this parable: Watch, therefore, for you know neither the day nor the hour.
If I knew the day and the hour of my death, or if I knew the day and the hour that Christ would return again, I could circle that day on my calendar, and between now and then I could live as if God didn’t matter. I could be as hard-hearted toward people I don’t like as I wanted to be. I could be as selfish and self-centered as I ever wanted to be…until one day before my death or the day before Christ’s return. Then, on that day before we died or the day before Christ returned, we could repent of our sins, die the next day and go to heaven.
But, as Jesus says here, we know neither the day nor the hour. Like the five bridesmaids who were unprepared, we don’t want to be unprepared for the most important day of our lives. You see, the most important day of our lives is not the day we graduate or the day we get married. The most important day of a doctor’s life is not the day he receives his medical license. The most important day of a lawyer’s life is not the day when she passes the bar exam. The most important day of a political candidate’s life is not the day they win the big election. But the most important day in each of our lives is that day when we meet Christ, the day when He returns to us or the day when we return to Him. And since none of us knows when that day will be, Jesus’ call to you and to me is just this: Watch, therefore, for you know neither the day nor the hour. Amen.
Rev. Paul D. Doellinger November 9, 2020