Last Sunday of the Church Year – Pr. Anderson sermon
St. Matthew 25:1-13 “Here is the Bridegroom and Here is the End”
November 24, 2024 | Christ Lutheran Church
In Nomine Iesu
+ + +
Lord God, heavenly Father, make us watchful and heedful in awaiting the coming of Your Son, our Lord Jesus Christ, that when He shall stand at the door and knock, He may find us not sleeping in carelessness and sin, but awake and rejoicing in His appearance; through the same, Your beloved Son, Jesus Christ, our Lord, who lives and reigns with You and the Holy Spirit, one true God, now and forever. Amen. (Evangelical Lutheran Hymnary, by Veit Dietrich, p. 165)
Grace to you and peace from God our Father and the Lord Jesus Christ. Amen. (Rom. 1:7, etc.)
The sermon text for today is taken from the 25th chapter of the Gospel according to St. Matthew. We read selected verses in Jesus’ name:
But at midnight there was a cry, ‘Here is the bridegroom! Come out to meet him.’
“Then all those virgins rose and trimmed their lamps. And the foolish said to the wise, ‘Give us some of your oil, for our lamps are going out.’
“But the wise answered, saying, ‘Since there will not be enough for us and for you, go rather to the dealers and buy for yourselves.’ And while they were going to buy, the bridegroom came, and those who were ready went in with him to the marriage feast, and the door was shut.
These are Your words, heavenly Father. Sanctify us by Your truth, Your Word is truth. Amen. (Joh. 17:17)
In Christ Jesus, who as your bridegroom He laid down His life for you, and He will come again to bring you to Jerusalem the Golden with milk and honey blessed, dear fellow redeemed:
How fast can time move? For the most part, it moves a minute at a time. There are days where maybe we would love it if it would go faster. We have had a long day at work and we are just ready to go home. Maybe something terrible has happened. A loved one is near death’s door. Now instead of wishing time would go fast, we are now wishing that it would slow way down. No matter if we want it to go fast or slow, time will continue to march on. Scripture continues to tell us, like in our Gospel text for today, as time continues to march on, we need to be ready for the end. We must be ready at all times because only God knows when the end will be. The end is very important. When the end comes, it is going to begin eternity. So, with patience we wait for the sign that the end is here. Not only will we know it is here when we see the bridegroom, but when He comes it will mark the end. An ending that will bring us into the marriage feast.
Since there is going to be this great feast, there will be guests in attendance. As we have heard of all those who are invited, in this parable, we see how the bridegroom is accompanied. “Then the kingdom of heaven will be like ten virgins who took their lamps and went to meet the bridegroom. Five of them were foolish, and five were wise.” Now every parable has a different aspect it focuses on. Some have focused on how everyone is invited and many reject the invitation. In this parable Jesus is putting our focus on the people who have accepted the invitation and they are waiting for the feast to begin. Even out of the people who accepted the invitation there will be some who won’t be as ready as they need to be. This looks like some harsh criticism, but Jesus will point out why this will happen.
He says, “For when the foolish took their lamps, they took no oil with them, but the wise took flasks of oil with their lamps.” Now if you are invited to something special, and you truly want to go, you should want to do everything you need to be ready. But the foolish aren’t ready. They only grabbed what was initially needed and they weren’t prepared for how long the wait could be. For Jesus’ day, the people were yearning for the Messiah to come and deliver them. They thought they were ready until the Messiah actually came. The Messiah didn’t fit their mold. Throughout their history you see countless numbers of people who thought they were ready. They were doing the sacrifices. On the surface level they were following the laws. To truly be ready, Jesus says it’s more than that. For the lamp to be lit, the light has to be continually supplied. The people were neglecting what supplied their lamps.
You might be wondering, what were the people missing then? What were they doing wrong if they were chosen and carried out God’s laws? Not only does the law need to be carried out, but they lacked the meaning behind it as David sings, “For you will not delight in sacrifice, or I would give it; you will not be pleased with a burnt offering. The sacrifices of God are a broken spirit; a broken and contrite heart, O God, you will not despise” (Psalm 51:16-17). You can’t go through motions. You also can’t sit back and do nothing. “As the bridegroom was delayed, they all became drowsy and slept.” It has been two thousand years and the bridegroom still hasn’t come. He could arrive today, tomorrow, or in another five hundred years. “But at midnight there was a cry, ‘Here is the bridegroom! Come out to meet him.’” He will come and when He does, it will be the end. We end the church year on a strong note. If we don’t, Jesus teaches what will be at risk.
“Then all those virgins rose and trimmed their lamps. And the foolish said to the wise, ‘Give us some of your oil, for our lamps are going out.’” There will be some who are not ready for His coming even when they say they are. God instructs us to always feed our faith. We are fed continually through the Word and sacraments. That means coming here, confessing our shortcomings, hearing our shortcomings, and then hearing how God out of His great love and mercy grants forgiveness. The hang up is when we hear that we acknowledge our shortcomings. They can be hard to give up. We live in a world that would rather live with good works and if whatever you are doing makes you feel good then it must be okay. Jesus has taught us there is more to it than outward goodness. There is also more to it than just waiting for the end. As the parable says, the end will come and the foolish virgins will need to find oil for their lamps. The oil you need is here and now. The oil you need will not be there once the end happens. It will be too late.
As Jesus warns about being stagnant and being lost in neglect, there is time right now for change. This is why He was here, to create change in their hearts. It must take place and there must be patience. The bridegroom will come when He is least expected and that is the joy of this whole text, the bridegroom will come. “And while they were going to buy, the bridegroom came, and those who were ready went in with him to the marriage feast, and the door was shut.” There will be those who are ready. We know this because of Jesus’ very existence. God kept His promise to His people and as they look back in time, they see how there was always a remnant. When it looked like God had forsaken everyone, there were those who had oil for their lamps so they would continue to burn. As their light burned through the ages for their descendants to see, the Light of the world then arrived.
The Light, the bridegroom, instructed the people about how important the day is. Through His work, the people receive their oil for the day. St. Paul writes about this oil. For this very reason, make every effort to supplement your faith with virtue, and virtue with knowledge, and knowledge with self-control, and self-control with steadfastness, and steadfastness with godliness, and godliness with brotherly affection, and brotherly affection with love. For if these qualities are yours and are increasing, they keep you from being ineffective or unfruitful in the knowledge of our Lord Jesus Christ….For in this way there will be richly provided for you and entrance into the eternal kingdom of our Lord and Savior Jesus Christ (2 Peter 1:5-8, 11). You will walk with the Bridegroom in the end.
As the texts of this time of the church year can get us down or make us worried, Jesus always has His way of bringing us comfort. As we put our focus on Him and His message strengthens us, in the end, you hear the words, “the bridegroom came.” He doesn’t just come once and say, “good luck, I’ll see you later”, He is here. You are hearing Him speak to you, telling you your lamps are lit because of the faith you have in the work He has done for you. You see His work in action when the sacraments are rightly administered before your eyes. The bridegroom came once and laid down His life for His bride, the church. If this wouldn’t have happened, then there would be no hope for any of the virgins.
So, knowing what was at stake, knowing the struggles of sins, and the struggles of being prepared, the bridegroom did the work preparing you. And while the bridegroom continues to be with you, He will come again bringing you into His kingdom. The parable Jesus tells of the end, St. Paul also wrote about it. “For the Lord himself will descend from heaven with a cry of command, with the voice of an archangel, and with the sound of the trumpet of God. And the dead in Christ will rise first. Then we who are alive, who are left, will be caught up together with them in the clouds to meet the Lord in the air, and so we will always be with the Lord. Therefore encourage one another with these words” (1 Thessalonians 4:16-18). For you who are wise and continue to come and seek out the Bridegroom who comes to you in the Means of Grace, He will gather you through the gate in the end.
Now as the gate shuts, there will be those who can’t get in. “Afterward the other virgins came also, saying, ‘Lord, lord, open to us.’ But he answered, ‘Truly, I say to you, I do not know you.’ Watch therefore, for you know neither the day nor the hour.” This is why we remain faithful to the Word and Sacraments even when the world pushes back. We remain faithful and we continue to watch, because as our lamps burn bright waiting for the bridegroom, everyone will see them. We don’t hide them, and they are not burning in jest. We can’t be prepared without fuel. We acknowledge we have failed at times to keep ourselves nourished. In our faults, we look to the bridegroom who in His love laid down His life for us. We then put our hope in Him, knowing He will come again and we will hear the call. Like all who have gone before us waiting for the call of the kingdom that we will enter, in these last days we can find comfort in the promise they heard. But now thus says the LORD, he who created you, O Jacob, he who formed you, O Israel: “Fear not, for I have redeemed you; I have called you by name, you are mine (Isaiah 43:1). Amen.
Glory be to the Father and to the Son and to the Holy Ghost; as it was in the beginning, is now, and ever shall be, forevermore. Amen.
+ + +