St. Ansgar's Lutheran Church

Be Prepared: Choose This Day Whom You Will Serve

Every parable has a point. The point of today's Gospel parable is preparation. "Keep watch, because you do not know the day or the hour." Five out of ten bridesmaids knew that they did not know the hour of the bridegroom's coming. They were prepared for anything. Wise. The opposite of wisdom is foolishness. The other five figured that they knew when the bridegroom would arrive, and wound up unprepared. They procrastinated, and found themselves locked out of a wedding party to which they were invited. Foolish! They had only themselves to blame. Salvation is God's gift, Damnation is our own, the fault of our refusal of God's goodness in Christ.

The parable of the ten bridesmaids calls for wisdom. In the Scriptures, wisdom does not mean having a head full of facts and figures. To be wise is not necessarily to be smart. The smart are not always wise, especially when it comes to the things of God; or when it comes to the things of this world.

Jesus once prayed, "I thank thee, Father, Lord of heaven and earth, that thou hast hidden [the things of heaven] from the wise and understanding and revealed them to babes." We must first become fools completely bereft of wisdom, so that God would fill us with His wisdom. Christ is wisdom. Wisdom is Christ-in-action through us, trust in God's promises lived out in the world. The wise man built his house on solid rock; the foolish man built his house on the sand. In the storm, the fool's house is blown to pieces; while the wise man's house stands.

The one who hears Jesus' words and acts on them in faith is wise; the one who hears his words and refuses to act on them is foolish. The wise and faithful servant is busy doing what his master gave him to do in his absence, knowing that his lord can return at any moment. "The fear of the Lord is the beginning of wisdom; but fools despise wisdom and instruction." The fool says in his heart, "There is no God," and acts accordingly. "Teach us to number our days that we may get a heart of wisdom." (the psalmist).

The bridesmaids who were wise acted as if there were nothing else to live for but this wedding. Nothing else mattered so much to them as to be ready and prepared to meet the bridegroom. Their entire attention was turned undividedly toward the bridegroom and his wedding day as they went down their checklists: Lamps, check. Oil in the lamps, check. Extra oil, check. Lots of extra oil, double check. How foolish they must have looked to the others, carrying around those bottles of extra oil just to be on the safe side. Oh! what silly girls!

On the other hand, the foolish appear to be so much wiser, so much more secure. They act as if they had all the time in the world. For them, the wedding party was just another item on a list of things to do - like squeezing church in on Sunday morning before brunch, and some yard work. Hair and nails had to be done. Ultramar gas station is open until six. There was plenty of time to get some oil on the way. Besides, they already had lamps full of oil for a quick procession, and who wants to carry around extra oil when you don't have to?

To the world, the church appears to be utterly foolish. That people should spend an entire morning, and even a day, to hear God's Word preached when you could worship at your leisure in front of the TV set is sheer foolishness. That people should come together to confess their sins in the presence of one other and hear the voice of another forgiving their sins is complete foolishness.

Even more foolish is the notion that in eating a bit of bread and drinking a sip of wine, they are eating and drinking the very body and blood of Christ which He offered up on the cross as a sacrifice for sins. How foolish the Christian church appears by the world's standards of wisdom! Church is more interested in the coming of the new creation than in fixing the problems of the old creation. Oh! how foolish and out of touch Christians appear in this world!

They are as foolish and out of touch as those goofy bridesmaids lugging around their oil lamps in one hand, with bottles of extra oil in the other, eagerly waiting for the bridegroom to appear and the party to begin. But in the end, when the bridegroom makes his sudden and unexpected appearance, those who looked foolish are found to be wise; and those who appeared wise, wind up looking foolish.

The folly of the foolish is that they fell into figuring. They figured they knew the hour when the bridegroom was going to show up. They figured they had enough oil to last well into the evening. They figured they had enough time to get more if they needed it. What they didn't figure was that the bridegroom would be delayed, that they would sleep for longer than they planned, that the oil in their lamps would run out when they needed it the most, that bridegroom would come at midnight of all times.

That the he would appear so suddenly and the doors to the wedding hall would close. Who would have figured that? Their foolish figuring cost them dearly. In the end, they found themselves banging on a locked door, begging to be let in to the party to which they were invited, and hearing the harsh words of disappointment, "I don't know you."

The history of the church is filled with such foolish calculations. At the turn of the first millennium, there were people who left their homes and work and families because someone figured it was the time of the Lord's coming. In the last century, there have been groups who engaged in figuring out.

They predicted the coming of Christ several times over. And they were wrong as many times as they made predictions. Those who engage in such figuring always appear so much more zealous and wise and believing than those who live their lives in the quiet confidence of the knowing God is in control, that Christ can come at any moment.

In our day there again seems to be no shortage of people with too much time on their hands who foolishly attempt to calculate the day and the hour of Jesus' coming with one eye in the Bible and the other on the nightly news. Twenty years ago, the Soviet Union and the events in the Middle East was supposed to be the key to figuring the fate of our "late, great, planet earth."

Today, all that figuring isn't worth the paper it was printed on twenty years ago. It doesn't take the gift of prophesy to predict that the bookstores will be brimming over the next two or three years with more such silly predictions. "You do not know the day or the hour." That is Jesus' last word on the Last Day. That word puts an end to all speculations and calculations. In His wisdom and mercy, God has hidden these things from us. These things are not for us to know.

The foolish bridesmaids were wrong in many ways. St. Peter wrote that there would be scoffers in the last days, people who poke fun at the wise who patiently wait in expectation of Jesus' coming. They will say, "Where is this 'coming' that he promised? What's taking him so long? Delay also means a sense of false security for the foolish. Jesus didn't appear yesterday, and he likely won't appear tomorrow. Therefore, there's always time tomorrow to respond to God's Word.

God's way of keeping time is not the same as ours. "With the Lord, a day is like a thousand years, and a thousand years are like a day." The Lord is not slow, he's patient. In his delay is his mercy. God desires everyone to experience marvelous his grace. God is willing to wait. How long? He doesn’t say.

What He has said is that "Now is the acceptable moment. Now is the time of our salvation." Today is the day, not tomorrow or the next day, or next week. There may be no tomorrow, or the next day, or the next week. The wise know that the bridegroom appears when you least expect him, like a thief in the night.

At midnight, while everyone sleeps, the call rings out. "The bridegroom comes! Awake! Your lamps with gladness take." Who would have expected a wedding party to begin at midnight?

God is rich in his mercy. God gives us enough in life to keep our lamps burning until the he comes. To live as the wise is to live in the anticipation and expectation of the greatest party there ever was, the marriage feast of the Lamb in his kingdom which has no end.

To live as a fool is to live as if the invitation can wait - until next week, next month, or "whenever I have the time." The wise live today, in the "now" of their being forgiven in the death and resurrection of Christ. The foolish live in tomorrow, a tomorrow that does not belong to them and may not be given them.

All ten bridesmaids were invited. All ten slept. All were awakened. The wise rose to greet the bridegroom with joy, prepared to process into the banquet hall, lamps trimmed and burning, with oil enough to last forever. The foolish rose to greet the bridegroom with panic, scrambling for oil they do not have, and finding out too late that there is no oil to share. Each of us receives the gift of life through faith in Christ Jesus. No one can believe for another. No one can receive for another.

The wise will rise to enter the marriage feast of the Lamb, which has no end. That is God's gift. The wise knew in whom they hoped and for whom they waited. They lived and slept in the confidence of the bridegroom's coming. We know for whom we wait, and he knows us in our Baptism. He is the One who died on the cross for us, who rose from the grave for us, who sits enthroned in heaven for us.

He is the One who baptized us, who forgives us, who feeds us his body and blood, who gives us his Spirit, more oil than you and I can possibly burn in a lifetime. Trusting him, we are prepared today for his coming.

To live as the wise in faith is to live in the confidence of that Day, whether that Day is today, tomorrow, or the next day. We can live and sleep and die in the confidence of him who once came for us by birth and death, who comes to us now by the preaching Word, who will come in glory on the Last Day to raise us from the dead and give us eternal life in his name. We do not know the day or the hour" of his coming. We don't need to know. But one thing we need to know is:

Rev. Samuel King-Kabu

November 10, 2002