A sermon on Matthew 25:1-13 for the Last Sunday of the Church Year. Delivered by Pastor Caleb Strutz.

One really interesting phenomenon is doomsday preppers. Have you heard of these guys? There are people who want to prepare for the end of the world, not in a theological sense, but in case nuclear bombs drop or the entire electrical grid goes down or something like that. These people will have bunkers that are stocked with food, water, fuel, and usually a lot of guns and ammunition. The goal is to be prepared no matter what might happen, to be ready for the end of the world.

And it’s this sense of readiness that our Lord wants to impress upon us in our Gospel reading today. As we prepare for the end of the world, as we wait to hear the trumpet call of our God, our Lord tells us to watch and be ready. This isn’t done by stocking up supplies, but by making spiritual preparations. You can’t wait to get ready, because then it might be too late, you gotta be ready for the second coming of Christ.

I. Can’t Get Ready

Jesus tells us something about the end of the world and gives us this warning through a parable, an earthly story with a heavenly meaning. Now, there’s a lot of difficulties when it comes to interpreting parables and one of them is that they’re not always true to life.

Obviously, when Jesus tells a story, it’s going to be something that His hearers can identify with and recognize. But often there’s a twist, something unexpected to really highlight the point that Jesus is making.

The problem that this makes when it comes to the parable of the ten virgins is that we don’t know very much about first-century Jewish wedding practices, it’s hard to nail a lot of these things down, especially as early as the time of Christ. And that leaves us with a lot of questions which might shape how we interpret the parable and give nuance to the point that Jesus is making that we just don’t have answers to.

Where’s the bride in all this? She’s not even mentioned. Was it normal for a bridegroom to delay like this? Was it expected to bring extra oil or were the wise virgins just extra prepared? Would it even be possible to buy oil this late at night? We don’t know which of these details are normal and expected or which details Jesus has exaggerated or made unexpected in order to really drive home His point.

So although we’re left with a lot of questions and maybe without the kind of nuance we would hope for, Jesus’ fundamental point is still obvious and still comes across. The historical context is helpful, but Scripture is still clear without it. The virgins have to be ready to honor and accompany the bridegroom no matter when he comes.

And there are many in our world today that can only be compared to the foolish virgins. How many young people say, “Yeah, I’m supposed to go to church, that’s something I should be doing, but I’m too busy now and I’ll get back to it later.”  And that “later” never comes. It’s, “well, when I have kids,” but then the kids are too little to behave in church so “when they get older” but then there’s activities and… Just kicking the can down the road. But if you’re going to get ready, you’re not ready. You could die tonight and find yourself before the righteous Judge. Are you ready for that?

But the issue that the foolish virgins in our text face is actually the opposite of this and, I think, a little closer to the challenges facing most of us. When the virgins get there, they’re ready, they have oil in their lamps. But it’s not enough. They’re not ready for the long haul. If the groom had arrived right then, they’d be fine, but they didn’t prepare for the future, their readiness was rather short-lived.

If you’re here, congratulations, that means that you’re probably doing what you need to do to be ready. But how long will that readiness last? Are you prepared to be ready for what lies ahead?

How tough is your readiness? Will it endure obstacles and challenges and hardships and the distractions of everyday life or will that readiness flicker, fade, and smoulder out? Are you here because you know you need to be ready for Christ to return or because well, what else are you going to do on a Sunday morning?  Is Christ’s return something that you even see as a possibility, something even worth considering, something worth being ready for?

All ten virgins fell asleep, the foolish and the wise. That’s because the bridegroom delays, we don’t know when Christ is going to come, so we grow sleepy. But when the trumpet sounds and the cry goes out, will you be ready at a moment’s notice or will you be fumbling with your lamp, wishing you had more time? We need to be ready and stay ready, but there’s so much else that absorbs our attention.

II. Gotta Be Ready

Another difficulty when interpreting a parable is how far you’re going to push the details. There are times when every detail in a parable means something. In the parable of the sower and the seed, for example, Jesus explains that this means this and this means this and so on. But there are other times when it seems that details are given just to add depth and flesh out the story and move it along without there necessarily being a spiritual lesson behind them. This parable seems to be in that second category, especially because Jesus makes clear the one main point He’s trying to make at the end.

So with what we’ve been talking about with readiness, the question is, “What do we need to be ready?” Within the story that’s pretty clear, you need the oil, but what is the oil supposed to represent? And here’s where things can get tricky.

Because some people will say, “The oil is faith,” but others will say, “It’s good works.” How do you know, there’s not much to go off of here. A lot of times digging deeper than you’re maybe supposed to reveals more about where you’re coming from than what the text actually says.

So instead of identifying the oil with any particular thing, I think it’s safer to just take a step back and say that the oil is whatever it takes for you to be ready to honor the Bridegroom when He comes again in glory. And that could be any number of things, depending on where you’re at spiritually.

We need repentance to prepare to welcome Jesus and we also need true faith in Him. We need perseverance and courage when the going gets tough and we need humility to keep us watching in spite of our pride. We need to be willing to suffer and deny ourselves to follow Him. We need to be aware of and detached from this world’s brokenness just like we need the desire for God’s will to be done and His kingdom to come. The list can go on, all of these can be the oil that we need to ready our lamps, to be ready to receive the King when He comes.

And here’s the good news: every single one of those things, everything we need to be ready is free. We shouldn’t push the wise virgins telling the foolish ones to go and buy some oil too far because to be ready we need spiritual things and all of these are freely given by our gracious God. Yes, it is important to be ready, but our readiness does not come from our own effort but from the grace and generosity of God.

He has done everything to make us ready. He sent His Son to this earth in humility to fulfill the laws we could not keep, to be ready for us when we were lax, to take on the punishment of our unpreparedness. On the cross, God has achieved salvation through the death of Jesus, His Son. And He gives it to you for free.

You don’t have to go looking for the forgiveness that Jesus won, God gives it to you. Through Baptism, He washed away all of your sins and made you part of the family, invited you to the wedding. Through His Word, He sends the Holy Spirit to continue to work in your heart and He tells you everything there is to know about Him. Through the Supper, He gives you the Body and Blood of His Son, given and shed on the cross for you, to strengthen you and make you ready, to show you what’s coming next at the great feast in the world to come.

And God works in you the faith needed to receive these gifts. Every spiritual blessing that we have and need God has done and accomplished and generously pours out on you. God won salvation on the cross, distributes it through the means of grace, and works the faith in your heart to receive it. Every step of the way it’s all God, it’s all free. He makes you ready, gives you what you need to keep watch, ensures that you have oil in abundance, that your lamp will continue to shine.

If there’s one impulse that the doomsday preppers have right it’s that you need to stock up to be ready for the end of the world. On the Last Day, food and fuel and guns won’t do you much good, but the spiritual preparations, the heavenly supplies will make you ready. So stock up. Remember your Baptism, read and study God’s Word, receive the Sacrament as often as you can. Through these means, God gives you the oil, He gives you every spiritual gift that you need to be ready. No matter where you’re at or what you need, God will give it to you through these precious means of grace. Stock up. Be ready. The Lord is coming to bring you into the great wedding banquet. Come quickly, Lord Jesus. Amen.