231112 Sermon on Matthew 25:1-13 (Pentecost 24) November 12, 2023

 Audio recording

Sermon manuscript:

What are you looking forward to? Is there a family gathering
coming up? Christmas is around the corner. What gifts would you like to receive?
Retirement? Weddings? Children or grandchildren? There are a lot of things to
look forward to.

What about Jesus Christ’s second coming in power and great
glory? Is that on your list? Probably not. There’s a proverbial saying: “It’s
not the end of the world.” Behind that saying is a belief that the end of the
world would be a bad thing, and that’s not unreasonable. The end of the world
means the end of our earthly activities. This earthly life moves into the past.
A somewhat unknown future rushes upon us. It is scary to think of all the things
we are accustomed to failing and being presented with the unknown.  

You, who trust in Jesus, though, should not be afraid of him
coming in power and great glory. This is not something you can do just by
mustering up your nerve not to be afraid. That won’t work. There is only one
reason why you should not be afraid of Jesus coming again, and that is the
message of the Gospel. The Gospel is the good news about the relationship
between God and us. The hostility between foul sinners on the one hand and a
holy God on the other has been overcome by the sacrifice of Jesus on the cross.
This means that when Jesus comes, our future with God will be different from
what we otherwise would expect.

What would we otherwise expect? An honest look at what we’ve
done will quickly give us the answer. We haven’t done what we should have done.
We’ve done what we shouldn’t have done. Meeting our Maker, face to face,
immediately thrusts before us God’s judgment. The books are opened. There is
nothing hidden that will not be revealed. What we otherwise expect, apart from
the Gospel, is that we will be horrified and ashamed.

There is a stupendous truth here, not often acknowledged. Paul
calls it the “ministry of the letter.” The glory of this ministry of the letter
is so magnificent that nobody can stand to look at the end of it unless he has
first turned to Christ. The glory of the letter of the law is in the way that
it brings death and eternal death to all who do not fulfill it. This stupendous
truth says that based upon how I have lived, with all my sin, I should be
punished by God. He should deprive me of all happiness. He should snuff out my
life. I deserve to go to hell.

But no matter how glorious this divine truth is, it isn’t even
close to being the most glorious—at least according to Paul. Paul says that
there is the ministry of the Spirit that is far more glorious. By the term,
“ministry of the spirit,” he is referring to the Gospel. The Gospel declares
that Jesus has taken our place. God is well pleased with all mankind because of
Jesus. All who believe in him will have eternal life.

So let’s go back to how we might feel about the second
coming of the Lord Jesus Christ. Everybody has at least a little part of them
that is afraid. To be perfectly unafraid would require a perfect faith. That
isn’t possible in this life where we are constantly under assault from the
devil, the world, and our sinful flesh. There’s an element of fear in each of
us because the Law is true. The Law says that God should punish us for our sins,
and we know that we have sinned.

But here we should recall something that happens so often in
what has been recorded in the Bible. So often God’s people are confronted with
terrible facts, terrible laws. People are surrounded by water, or by enemies,
or by lions, or possessed by demons. And all these facts and laws seem to lead
to one conclusion—“You’re lost! There’s no hope for you!” But into these
terrible situations God steps in and says, “Do not be
afraid.” God says, “Do not be afraid,”
countless times in the Scriptures. It’s as though he is saying, “I understand
that these laws are calling for your destruction, but I am the Lord of all
laws. So be still and see how I am God.”

And so on Judgement Day we will be witness to the working of
laws that are more stupendous than anything we might be familiar with from our
earthly life here. Even the laws of nature will do strange and unheard of
things. As Amos says in our Old Testament reading, there will be nowhere to
turn, nowhere to be safe. The only one to whom we can turn and in whom we can
be safe is the God who is lord over all the terrible forces. We must turn to
the one who is Lord over what will be ripping this creation apart.

How necessary, therefore, is the ministry of the Spirit, the
word of the Gospel, through which God says, “Do not be afraid. This Law has
called out for your punishment, but I have silenced all its accusations against
you when I sent my Son to die for all the sins of the whole world—including
yours.”

So what we can see from all of this is that the Day of the
Lord is tremendous. Nobody will have experienced anything like it before it
happens. It should not be taken for granted—some future event that is nothing
to get excited about. If ever we have been excited about anything, then this
day must provoke our greatest excitement. There’s to be joy for those of you
who believe, but, as we think of it now, there’s an element of fear too.

We see this in our Gospel reading. Our Gospel reading is a
parable about the end of the world. Jesus is the groom. The bride is the Holy
Christian Church. The groom is coming for his bride because he loves her. The
overall mood of this parable is by no means sad. The ten virgins are not
dreading the coming of the groom. If anything, they are sad that he has been
delayed. But then the cry comes at midnight: “He’s
arrived! Come out to meet him!” Those young women must have been roused
from their sleep with great happiness. He’s finally here!

It’s like Christmas morning. You don’t have to prod the
children to get out of bed. They come a-running like calves out of the stall.
They can’t wait to see him.

But Jesus also has a reason for telling us about the foolish
virgins as well. Their joy quickly turns to dread. They’ve forgotten their oil.
They can’t appear before the groom like that. Maybe they can get some from the
others, but it turns out, no they can’t. Each must believe for himself or
herself. The borrowing of faith is not possible. While they are gone in search
of some way to be presentable to the groom, the doors are shut. That shows that
the time of grace has ended. The time of preaching the Gospel and administering
the sacraments has ended.

Jesus finished this parable by saying, “Watch, therefore, because you do not know the day nor the
hour.” That helps us understand what happened with the foolish virgins,
and it gives us our cue as well so that we do not end up in the same boat. It
is not only possible, it is easy, for people who self-identify as Christians to
quit watching for Christ’s second coming. What do they look for instead? Generally,
it’s all the lovely gifts our benevolent Creator gives us in this early life. They
look forward to retirement, to vacations, to the good times ahead. There’s no
watching or waiting for the day of the Lord. The glory of the ministry of the
Spirit leaves no impression, nor do the terrors of the law. Usually they say,
at least to themselves: “We know all that stuff already. There’s no need to go
on talking about it.” Off to sleep they go.

So how do we keep watch? How do we keep oil in our lamps? How
may we be prepared for Christ’s second coming? You might think that fear should
work. However, the fear of failure or the fear of punishment will never do it
alone. If you prepare only by being fearful, then you are treating God as though
he were your enemy. Perhaps by fear you can prepare somewhat for battle against
him, but I don’t like your chances in such a fight. Fear alone won’t do.

But, to be honest, an excessive fear of God’s judgment is
hardly a problem among us. Among us, it is rather the opposite. Fear of the Day
of Judgment is shrugged off. No big deal. Or it isn’t talked about. A person
might wonder while hearing this parable how it is possible that these church
members, these virgins, were so foolish and unprepared. Well, might it be that
when they congregated as a church they never talked about Judgement Day, or it
was explained away as nothing to worry about?

Do you realize how rare it is to find a congregation that
takes God’s judgement seriously? Our land is littered with churches, but I
don’t know if a tenth of them take such things seriously. And yet they have well-meaning
people in them who are quite sure that they are as Christian as anybody else. However,
it is a Christianity on their terms instead of on God’s terms. A redefined,
seemingly improved or more palatable Christianity might be successful by
earthly measurements, but true Christianity prepares us for Judgement Day and
for the life to come.

So we dare not shrug this day off, nor the fear that it
tends to provoke. Nevertheless, only that person is truly worthy and well
prepared who has faith in Jesus’s words. And what are Jesus’s words? Why is he
coming? You know something he says: “For God so loved
the world that he gave his only-begotten Son, that whoever believes in him will
not perish but have eternal life. For God did not sent his Son into the world
to condemn the world, but in order that the world might be saved through him.”
Is not Jesus the groom, hastening to the bride whom he loves? These are the
facts of God that overwhelm all other facts, no matter how glorious those other
facts might appear to be. Jesus’s love is more glorious.

The Christian’s strength is never in fear. Fear can helpful.
It can be a spur to wake us up or pull us out of ruts. However, fear can’t get
us one inch closer to peace and to knowledge of God. For that we need God’s
unfailing promises, in which we believe.

The Day of the Lord, the Day of Judgement, lies in the
future. It could be today. It could be tomorrow. If ever we have looked forward
to anything, then we should look forward to this day. It is a thrilling cry:
“Wake, up! Here he comes! Come out to meet him!”

May God bless you with faith so that that day will give you
the inexpressible joy that it deserves.