Trinity 27

Matthew 25:1-13 - Trinity XXVII - November 25, 2012
Faith’s Anticipation

Anticipation is half the pleasure.  There’s something true about this.  When you’re looking forward to something, not only do you feel like each day is filled with that much more meaning, but also in those moments of waiting you have the opportunity to ponder and reflect upon whatever it is you’re waiting for.  And that’s nice.  It kind of keeps you energized in a way.  But you know that with whatever pleasure that you’re looking forward to, nine times out of ten you end up spending more time looking forward to it than you do actually enjoying it.  It’s funny how that works. 
Just think of thanksgiving guests coming and leaving … and now they are leaving again.    

But this isn’t how it works when it comes to eternal life.  It’s eternal, after all.  It lasts forever.  No amount of waiting will outlast or match what God has prepared for us there.  We wait for heaven by waiting on God who gives us heaven.  We wait on God by listening to His word that saves us.  We hear and believe the promises that He makes to us in Christ, and, although we can neither see nor feel any evidence that He will deliver on His promises, we wait, because God’s word is true.  His reliability is not determined by what we are able to see or feel.  No, but God swears by Himself that all who wait on Him shall not be put to shame.  And so, in Jesus’ name we pray with the Psalmist:

Make me to know your ways, O Lord; teach me your paths.
Lead me in your truth and teach me, for you are the God of my salvation.
For you I wait all the day long (Psalm 25:4-5).

In other words, we pray that God teach us the Gospel.  That’s how we wait.  That’s what it means to wait – that’s what it’s always meant.  To wait is to believe the Gospel.

In the grand scheme of things – seeing as much as heaven is eternal, and the life of this earth is like a breath when it is past – our waiting is very short.  And yet, from our perspective it seems to take so long.  But this is because we are sinners.  God speaks; our flesh denies it.  God makes promises; our flesh resists them.   This is the cause of our weariness.   It is not God’s slowness.  No, He is faithful – like the bridegroom in Jesus’ parable – He will most certainly come – how could he not when his anticipation for his bride is so great?!   But it is our own impatience that makes the meantime unpleasant.  It is our own unbelief.  In this life we must continue to resist the sinful inclinations of the world, the devil, and our fallen flesh.  It is exhausting.  It is what makes life such a bear.  And it is particularly our failures to do just this that makes our current life seem and feel so uncertain. 

But God gives us consolation in the midst of our struggle, and refreshment in the midst of our fatigue.  He gives to us by faith what will be ours in eternity.  Remember, anticipation is half the pleasure.  Now, I suppose, of course, we can’t really measure the joys of heaven in such a way.  Half the pleasure?  That doesn’t even make sense when talking about eternity.  But whatever the percentage we might pretend to place on “forever,” either way, we have to conclude that it is the SAME pleasure.   And this is the point!  We can and we must identify that which we have by faith today as the exact same thing that we will have by all five senses in heaven.  It is Christ.  He is ours.  It is as I was taught to sing as a child, and I think I’ve chosen for you to sing at least once:

We have all things Christ possessing,
Life eternal, second birth,
Present pardon, peace, and blessing,
While we tarry here on earth,
And by faith’s anticipation,
Foretaste of the joy above,
Freely given us with salvation
By the Father in His love. 

The anticipation of faith is very short compared to the eternal joys of heaven.  But this doesn’t mean that we should despise it.  It’s the opposite.  The anticipation of faith is essential, not only because it is the very means by which we receive salvation, but also because there is in it a foretaste of heaven’s joy.  Think of that:  The joy that awaits us in eternal bliss is given to us in part even here on earth while we must contend against all our foes (that’s what the Psalms call them – our foes, our enemies. We know them as fleshly lusts, a bad conscience, the devil).  But there is pleasure in anticipating salvation, precisely because in so doing, we anticipate the final victory over all these things. 

We are saved by faith.  In believing today, we are not just fulfilling some intellectual requirement for admittance into God’s eternal banquet of joy.  No, in believing today, we become acquainted with what we will experience and love for all eternity.  St. Paul writes, “Now we see in a mirror, dimly, but then face to face. Now I know in part, but then I shall know just as I also am known.”  What we know in part today is a peace that surpasses all understanding – a peace that we have with God our Father through the blood of Jesus Christ shed in our place on the cross. 

In our Gospel lesson this morning, Jesus compares the kingdom of heaven to ten virgins.  They were waiting in anticipation for the bridegroom to come.  Five of them were wise, and five of them were foolish.  The ten virgins represent the whole church on earth.   Ten is the number of completeness.   They are all those who gather around the outward marks of the church.  They are all baptized.  They gather to hear the Gospel.  They hear the absolution.  They receive the Lord's Supper.  They are found where God prepares sinners for heaven by giving to them the forgiveness of sins.  It’s a good place to be.  But why are they there?  And here is where we see the difference between the 5 wise virgins and the 5 foolish. 

The five wise virgins are there because their joy is in the bridegroom.  They wait for him with steadfast faith that they will soon celebrate the union that has already been declared between the bridegroom and his wife.   And although they know the wait may be long – although they may slumber in earthly sorrow or even in physical death – yet they have found joy in their waiting, and so have prepared themselves with oil for the time they know will come.  That is, they have found joy in receiving the forgiveness of sins, which is not only a guarantee of the future celebration in heaven but also a foretaste of it. 

So what then are the five foolish virgins doing there?  Well, one thing that is certain is that they have not cared to provide oil for when the Bridegroom comes.  This means that their expectation is hollow and that they have found no pleasure in the anticipation of what God has promised.  How?  Why?  Because they have found no joy in the forgiveness of sins given to them in the gospel and the sacraments.  That’s why. 

Now, of course, there’s so much more to our Lord’s comparison of a wedding feast to the hope of heaven.  So I’d like to take some time to point out some differences between the way we typically celebrate weddings and how they were celebrated in Jesus’ day. 

Today a man asks a woman to be his wife.  She says yes.  They set a date.  During this time they are engaged.  They are busy planning their wedding.  They aren’t married.  They’re going to be, and there is plenty of excitement for the day that they are legally declared man and wife.  On that same future day all their guests will be gathered as they celebrate the marriage that will be made before God and many witnesses.  And then they feast. 

But in 1^st century Palestine, the custom was different.  And the historical details lend themselves much better to the lesson that Jesus is teaching us in His parable.  In Jesus’ day, a man and his wife were joined in holy matrimony legally.  They were man wife.  They were legally one flesh.  But this legal ceremony would take place days, or even weeks, before the wedding feast.  What would happen is that a husband would promise to come at an unspecified time to claim his bride.  But in the meantime, he would go to say good-bye to his father and his mother, whom he would leave, in order to cling to his wife.  He would use this time also to prepare the home that they would make their own. 

As the husband of the bride prepared, all who cared, all who were eager in anticipation waited with the bride.  They waited.  They had to be prepared.  He could come at day; he could come at night.  No one knew.  This is why those who waited, doubtless among other preparations, had to be ready to walk the streets at night with their lamps, with oil in store to shine the way. 

You couldn’t come late.  You were prepared when he came, or you weren’t.  It wasn’t enough simply to be with the bride.   You had to be prepared to go where she was taken and when she was taken. 

Such is the life of a Christian.  Just as the bride was legally married, so we are legally joined to Christ; we are legally declared righteous before God.  But now we wait.  We await the feast. We await the celebration.  And what is that celebration?  We await the consummation of Christ and His Church.  It is as we sing: 

Mid toil and tribulation
And tumult of her war – because the wait is not always pleasant! 
She waits the consummation
Of peace forevermore,
Till with the vision glorious
Her longing eyes are blest
And the great Church victorious
Shall be the Church at rest.

This is the life of a Christian.  The wait is often painful.  So it goes.  But what is it that we long to see but the union of Christ and His Church that has already been declared by God the Father, and established by His Son Jesus Christ in His life for us, and in His death for us.  It’s been declared.  God has said it.  What preparations that need to be made have already been made by the Father who prepared His Son on the cross as the Lamb of God who takes away the sin of the world. 

An engaged couple today waits for the mutual promise to come true – “I will say yes.”  But that’s not the comparison Jesus gives.  We have the promise.  We have the oath.  “I have said yes,” the Gospel declares to us.  We have the union.  We can’t see it.  No, not now.  We wait for that.  But what we long to see is already a reality before God in heaven. 

It is this reality that we return to in order to prepare ourselves for the darkest night of our Lord’s return.  “Your word is a lamp to my feet, and a light to my path,” we pray—because the word of God leads us to, and gives us the knowledge and certainty of what God says is so.  He is faithful.  He baptizes us here, and so gives us birth into a life undefiled by sin and bedecked with the most precious raiment that only the blood of God could buy.  He absolves us here, and our sins are as far from us as the east is from the west.  He teaches us the words through which the Holy Spirit comes and fills our hearts and keeps them burning in ready anticipation for the end.  He gives to us as a solemn pledge of peace with God: His own body and blood given into death and shed for sinners who need something outside of themselves something solid and certain to fill them with gladness.  And this is what it means to prep with oil.  It is to go to where the Holy Spirit is given – to where the Holy Spirit convinces and comforts you with the declaration of God’s favor that means beyond a shadow of a doubt that your Lord is coming to you. 

Ten virgins waited.  The Church waits.  Five virgins did not prepare.  They neglected the means of grace.  The came to hear; they came to receive; but they did not believe.  They did not find joy in the Gospel, because they were not perturbed by their sins.  They attached themselves to the church on earth in order to celebrate their own virtues.  But no matter how pure these virgins kept themselves, they had no oil.  They had no Holy Spirit.   They had not the righteousness of Christ, which is owned and loved by faith alone.  They will cry out, “Lord, Lord,” like the rest.  But because they did not share in His joy, they will be locked out and unknown by our Lord. 

But ten virgins waited.   The Church waits.  Five virgins prepare.  God prepares us through the means of grace – through the word and sacraments right here.  Sometimes Jesus likens us to the bride herself.  But here Jesus likens us to those who wait with the bride.  Jesus does this to show that, although we are many – five virgins – we are one in our bridal anticipation – we are one in our hope and confidence for forgiveness and eternal life.  We have one Lord, one Faith, one Baptism.  And there is one God and Father of us all who works the same confidence in each one of us.  Our union with each other is found in our union with Christ our head. 

And so is our joy.  There is no feigned pleasure.  No, because there is no feigned sin, and no feigned peace with God.  We don’t pretend.  There is genuine joy that is learned when we see or Savior’s own joy towards us.  Like a bride astonished and honored with all her attendants at the devotion and love that her Groom displays, so we humbly worship and wait for Him who – even as all around us grows dim – adorns us with an indescribable gladness that shall last and shine as long as God’s word endures.  Forever.

In Jesus’ name, Amen.