Grace, mercy, and peace be with all of you from God our Father and from our Lord and Savior Jesus Christ. Amen. As I mentioned last week, the readings in the month of November in the liturgical calendar, the calendar of readings that we use as we travel through the church year, begin to turn our thoughts towards the end of the world, especially in the month of November here. The end of the church calendar is right basically at the end of November, and then it starts a new year in the church in December with the first Sunday of Advent. And here we have a parable told by Jesus which is entirely about being prepared for the end of all things. This parable features 10 young ladies standing in the street waiting.
Who are they waiting for? They’re waiting for a bridegroom who is late. He’s supposed to visit the bride’s house first in this place. He goes and gets the bride, and then they go together to the banquet. And yet, these ladies have gathered. They are there to celebrate. They are there to accompany her and to celebrate her. And yet she only has half the bridesmaids she’s supposed to have because half of them are wise and half of them are foolish. Five of them came with just one lamp’s worth of oil and their wick, and they burned it up, and the others were wise and they came with not just a lamp full of oil but also a jug in case they ran out.
Everything in this day’s readings is about time. Our psalm this evening says, Lord, make haste, hurry up. Don’t delay. Come quickly. Our reading from St. Paul says, we who are alive, who are left until the coming of the Lord Jesus, will also be with the Lord when he returns. In fact, that that promise is so sure, it’s built on such a strong foundation that even those who have died in the meantime will also go to be with the Lord Jesus when he returns. Actually, it’s even better than that. Not only will they be with us as we go to meet the Lord Jesus Christ when he returns, but they will be ahead of us in line in meeting the Lord Jesus at the end of all things.
But it is the reading from Amos, the prophet in the Old Testament, which has captured my attention this week. Amos, who is sure that the day of the coming of the Lord will arrive, but who is less than enthusiastic for what that means for the people to whom he is preaching. Why are you so excited about the day of the Lord? Why are you so excited that God’s day is coming? Because for you, Israel, it will be darkness, not light. The day of the Lord will be like fleeing from a lion and then out of nowhere getting mauled by a bear.
It’ll be like running from someone and retreating into your house, slamming the door, putting your hand against the wall, breathing heavily. You’re safe. You’re finally safe. Only to immediately at that moment be bit on the ankle by a venomous snake. It is a day of judgment, he says. A day of darkness. And then Jesus comes into the picture and he shares this parable about keeping your lamps lit and the admonishment to keep awake, to pay attention, to be ready.
There are two evils which grow within us during the delay, the time between Jesus Christ’s ascension into heaven nearly 2,000 years ago and his return which has not yet come. Within that span of time, nearly 2,000 years, we have this terrible, terrible waiting. And in the waiting, in this middle time that we live in today, two evils grow within the human heart. Two evils begin to come out of us in various ways. And the two that I see are presumption and despair.
Presumption is the sin that says Jesus isn’t coming back. He’s not going to come back. And that was all a fanciful story from people a long time ago and far, far away. It’s not real. He’s not actually going to come. And if he does come, I’m going to be fine because God is fine with people like me. I’m sure I’m not perfect, but I’m basically okay. And those little sins that I think I get away with, God probably doesn’t even notice them. And if he does notice them, he’s certainly not going to hold them against somebody as good, as generally positive, optimistic, helpful, and well-liked as me. That sin is presumption. It is presumptuous of us to assume such a thing about the day of the Lord.
The other sin, the other evil that grows within us, the temptation that we face in this middle time, is the temptation to despair. To say the Lord isn’t coming, and he never will come, and there’s nothing that will improve this world, and it’s all just a mess. I speak today of presumption, the first of that I mentioned, the presumption that Jesus will not come, or worse yet, the presumption that Jesus will come, but when he does come, he’ll be just fine with everything we think and say and do, because after all, Jesus’ purpose is not to be a holy and righteous God. His purpose is to make me feel good. Amos, the prophet in our readings this evening, takes a club to that idea and gleefully bashes it to pieces. He speaks the word of the Lord, and what does the Lord say? I hate and despise your festivals. I refuse your offerings. I’m not listening to your music and singing, because there’s only one thing I want and you haven’t given it to me yet. Let justice roll down like waters.
Justice is one of those things that can be very frustrating because when you have an idea of what you think justice means, it can be frustrating to not see it done. It’s frustrating being a Christian because sometimes you see people saying that matters of Christian faith are just differences of opinion, or sometimes it’s frustrating to see men and women of God stand in public for ungodly acts in the public square and being applauded for it. It can be frustrating being a Christian to see other people act as if God is not real, to be essentially functional atheists who use the name of God but who use it in vain. But frankly, as frustrating as it is to see people publicly presume to change God’s word, each one of us, you and me together, we all presume that when Jesus returns, he will judge us blameless.
And the fact is that Jesus ultimately will return. He has made a promise and he who has promised is faithful. His gaze penetrates every human heart, not just at some point in the future, but now in this moment. He will arrive when things seem darkest, at midnight in the parable. He will return, coming like, he says, a thief in the night. And the cry will go up. The bridegroom has come. The bridegroom, Jesus Christ himself, has come down in the middle of the darkness to be united to his bride, the true church of God in Jesus Christ. The bridegroom has come. Come out to meet him, come out and light his way. And all of us will wake up and we will trim our wicks and those of us who have been careless about our faith will be caught unprepared.
Now the folks who will be caught unprepared in this way aren’t wicked. They’re not trying to be evil. They’re just careless. They don’t care about whether the bridegroom is ever going to arrive. Because whether he arrives or he doesn’t, they figure it probably all is going to work out just the same. And by then it will be too late.
They say to them, the one group of young ladies says to the other, give us some of your oil. You who have prepared and stocked up for a possible delay by the bridegroom, give us some of the lamp oil for our lamps so that we all might go into the banquet together. Suddenly now it’s the responsibility of those who were careful and prepared to do something for those who cared nothing about the arrival of the bridegroom. And they are told, you better go to the dealers and get some for yourself. But here’s the problem. It’s midnight. It’s going to take time to find a dealer and then wake them up and make the purchase, if they’re even willing to get out of bed for your non-emergency. It is quite literally too late.
There would be only one way to transfer the oil from one lamp to another. But first I’d have to put out my own lamp, wait for it to cool, and then carefully transfer its contents from one lamp to another. No, now that the bridegroom is here, the situation is urgent. The bridegroom has come. The celebration begins now. It’s no longer an option to be transferring liquids from one lamp to another, nor is it an option to transfer righteousness and faithfulness from one person to another. In fact, you can’t borrow faith. The faith of your mother and father will do nothing for you if you do not practice that faith yourself. Your grandparents’ faithfulness does not change your relationship to Jesus Christ. But look at the parable closely. I’ll read a little bit of it for you again.
When the foolish took their lamps, they took no oil with them. But the wise took flasks of oil with their lamps. And as the bridegroom was delayed, all of them became drowsy and slept. All of them, not just those who were unprepared and careless, but even those who had stocked up on oil and had plenty of oil for their lamps and for the coming celebration. All of them became drowsy and slept. All of them, the careless and the careful, the unrighteous and the righteous, all of them got drowsy and slept as they were awaiting the coming of the bridegroom. So the only difference between them is those who were prepared brought flasks of oil with their lamps, and those who were careless failed to prepare.
All of us are apt to get drowsy in the waiting. All of us are bound to think from time to time that Jesus is not coming back, and if he is coming back, that he won’t really care too much about the sin that I’ve been committing and the way that I’ve been living. All of us are apt to get drowsy and nod off in sin, but those who have faith have the oil that the bridegroom is expecting for the feast.
And those who come to the wedding feast well prepared with Christian faith will both do the things in this life to be well prepared for the coming of Jesus, acting in ways that are righteous and good. And also, they will have the faith that eagerly expects the bridegroom to come and they will be well prepared to meet him with the light. So those who will do the things to get prepared in this life will live out the command that God gives through the prophet Amos. Let streams of justice roll down. Or as Jesus paraphrasing the commands of the Old Testament says, love the Lord your God with all your heart and mind and soul and strength, and love your neighbor as yourself. And then you will have the faith that eagerly expects the bridegroom to come and you will be prepared to light his way.
So therefore, where do we get this oil? The oil of faith which makes us well prepared for the coming of the One whom we should celebrate. We come to receive that oil through the Holy Spirit. And we find it in the place where the people of God gather to worship. We find it in the church. And it here is supplied for us, freely flowing in the Word of God, read and preached, poured on our heads in baptism, and fed to us at the Holy Supper, provided for us not that we should hoard this oil, but that we should burn it, that we should use this oil to light up the world now and in the future, burning this oil to provide light to the world, to work in this life for justice and peace, and to hold out the light of Christ to a world that sells itself over and over again into darkness.
This oil is not earned. It is not deserved, but it is freely dispensed by the love of God in Jesus Christ our Lord. May you keep awake in this time of preparation for the return of Christ. And may the peace of God, which surpasses all understanding, keep your hearts and minds strong in Christ Jesus our Lord to life everlasting. Amen.