A, Pentecost 26 Proper 27 - Matthew 25:1-13 "Rest Ready"

What are you waiting for? Waiting is one of the hardest things to do. Waiting for something to finish; waiting for it to start. Waiting for Christmas; waiting for work to finish, waiting for the weekend. Waiting for first love; fiancées waiting for their wedding day. Waiting for morning, for sickness to end, waiting for it all to be over. Waiting to become pregnant, waiting nine months to see who your child is, and kids always waiting for mum or dad so they can get going! What are you waiting for?

Ten girls were waiting. They were bridesmaids, they were virgins. As their excitement built while they waited it took its toll and they fell asleep. There was no way they could maintain this enthusiasm without exhaustion setting in.

These ten girls had come to honour the bride and groom at the wedding breakfast. Perhaps to entertain and dance for them and their guests! And accompanying them were their torches; poles with rag bound to one end and soaked in olive oil. These torches would burn for about fifteen minutes before going out, and the girls would then have to trim off the burnt rage before re-soaking in olive oil and relighting the torches once again. They knew they needed to be ready with more oil as they waited for the groom to arrive.

We know that five of these girls were not prepared as they waited. As the night wore on their excitement turned to slumber, so when the bridegroom arrived and they were called into service, a startling jolt raised them from sleep as they dashed to soak their torches to be ready.

The ill-equipped girls’ actions were inexcusable. Their lack of preparedness showed them to be quite naïve. One wonders what they must have been thinking; this was an important occasion. They were quite disrespectful if they thought the event would be over in fifteen minutes. They demonstrated they hadn’t thought about what was going to happen, nor did they think about what they needed. Their insolence revealed their immaturity and ignorance and when the groom finally arrived they had no one else to blame but themselves. Whatever was going on within their hearts and minds, they grossly misread the importance of the event and their negligence caused them to be excluded at the end.

However, the ten girls waiting for the bridegroom is a parable. It’s a story Jesus told to illustrate what’s going to happen when he returns at the end for the resurrection and judgement of all people. This parable of the five prepared and the five unprepared girls is about you, me, and all people as we dwell here in the times before Jesus returns.

It’s a sobering thought for us all. We’re in the last days and Christ’s return could happen at any moment. The seriousness of our situation also confronts us as we ask ourselves: What am I waiting for? Am I prepared? How should I prepare myself? And which of the five girls am I in this parable?

If we are quick to judge ourselves by what we do, we need to do so with caution. The ten girls essentially all did the same thing. They all had their torches and they all fell asleep. They were the same, their appearances didn’t negate them from entry into the wedding banquet, but rather it was their unpreparedness. Five of the girls were resting ready, and five were resting on their own laurels, waiting in naïve ignorance.

So what should we do? Should we give up working, sit on top of a hill and wait for the rapture? No! I guarantee that like the bridesmaids our enthusiasm would quickly wear off and we would end up of use to nobody, not even ourselves. After all, all ten girls were sleeping —not watching out for the groom to arrive — yet five were still taken into the banquet.

Therefore, thinking the act of sitting in wait for Christ’s return will earn us the reward of eternal life is just plain wrong. Rather, patiently waiting, resting ready, being prepared everyday, is much more beneficial than being completely unprepared when it comes.

So the question is this: How do I become prepared so when Christ returns he might take me into the wedding breakfast of eternal glory forever?

Imagine the ten girls standing around waiting for the groom to arrive looking each other up and down. After all they all look the same, they all act the same, and they all fall asleep as they wait. But as they wait those with reserves of oil would have continued to wait patiently while those without spare oil would have been secretly convincing themselves, thinking, “We’re alright we’ll get in, we’ve got plenty of time yet!” Or perhaps they thought, “If he lets the others in, he’ll let us in too!” And when the bridegroom comes and they get caught out, even still they thought their efforts would get them in the door, “She’ll be right, we’ll talk our way in!” But as we know it’s not to be as they come to work their ways at they door the bridegroom replies, “I tell you the truth, I don’t know you!”

Therefore, what should surely grieve all Christians is when we hear of others who call themselves Christian, yet do not think it necessary to go to church! They rest on their own laurels thinking they have done enough to be welcomed by the bridegroom at the end of the age. Or they’re too ashamed to come and receive the essentials to cleanse and prepare them for the bridegroom.

But even more dreadful are those who think going to church is some kind of justifying work that earns them the right of entry. However, in all the time they spend working their glory, churching themselves, they never stop long enough to obediently receive the one thing that prepares them for eternity. As a Christian and a minister of Jesus Christ, it distresses me to see brothers and sisters too busy to really hear and receive the message of Christ!

The one thing we all need is forgiveness, this is what prepares us. It is essential for our preparation for the bridegroom’s return. Forgiveness cleanses us of all our sins before God the Father. Forgiveness gives us peace with God the Father. And forgiveness from God gives us the victory Christ won on the cross. Forgiveness is the good oil, you need his forgiveness! This good oil makes you holy; be anointed with the Anointed One, the Messiah, God’s Son. To be prepared, rest ready having heard and believed the good oil of forgiveness given for you!

However, this good oil is not cheap. For God to forgive us our sins against him, it cost Jesus his life! Although we can forgive each other we can’t give God’s forgiveness to each other, nor can we produce it ourselves, it comes from God himself, through his Son, Jesus Christ. And this good oil makes us candles of Christ burning with the Holy Spirit until Christ returns. We get the good oil through the essential things Jesus gives us so we might bear the forgiveness of sins.

These essentials are the forgiveness of sins given in Baptism, and the burning of the Holy Spirit in us making us yearn, to return time and time again, to be forgiven by God himself through the words of absolution spoken by the pastor. This forgiveness also comes when we take the bread and drink the wine, which is the good oil of Christ’s body and blood. And through the preaching and hearing of God’s Word where the Holy Spirit is given, we are fed the good oil so we might rest ready, alive in Christ. Just like the five girls prepared with reserves of oil for when the bridegroom made his surprise return!

So we return to the first question: What are you waiting for? Perhaps a better question is this: What are you waiting with? Jesus calls us to be ready — to keep watch — yet all the girls fell asleep. So we have the peculiar occurrence that five of the girls slept but in fact were keeping watch, or were being kept in their watch as they rested in Christ. But the other five slept and were not ready. In fact they were sleeping in the slumber that leads to eternal death.

To keep watch is keeping watch over ourselves, to remain vigilant, resting in Christ and remaining immersed in the means he gives us, supplying us with the good oil of his grace.

Therefore, encourage one and other to return and receive the forgiveness and the refining fires of the Holy Spirit that God so dearly desires all to have. Allow the continual cleansing and preparation of yourselves with the good oil of God’s grace. Rest ready in Christ; trim your torches!

Do not put out the Spirit’s fire… Test everything. Hold on to the good. Avoid every kind of evil.

May God himself, the God of peace, sanctify you through and through. May your whole spirit, soul and body be kept blameless at the coming of our Lord Jesus Christ. The one who calls you is faithful and he will do it. Amen. (1 Thessalonians 5:19,21-24)