TITLE: “Wake, Awake!”

Grace to you and peace from God our Father and the Lord Jesus Christ. Amen. Our text for today is the parable of the 10 virgins from Matthew 25.

I believe in the resurrection of the body, and the life of the world to come. Amen. So ends the Nicene Creed, that ancient confession of faith. In these words, at their very heart, is hope and expectation of the Christian Church. Our hope, our future lies not here and now, but there, in the resurrection of the body and the life of the world to come. This is the song of the church, the song that echoes forth throughout the ages.

That is the song which the watchman cries out in our text. Wake, awake, for night is flying, awake, Jerusalem, arise! Our Lord is coming down from heaven to bring us home to be with Him. His voice goes out into all the world and cries out, come to me! Trust in me! See my wounds which I bore for you! Look at everything I have done for you! Come to me, give me your burdens and cares, your sorrows and anguish. I will give you rest.

That is the song of the church to this day. Our Lord’s message of resurrection and hope echoes throughout the centuries. We see hints, or more than hints of it in our Lord’s life. Jesus’ name means he shall save his people from their sins. John the Baptist cries out behold the Lamb of God who takes away the sin of the world. Jesus declares in the synagogues that he comes to set the prisoners free and release for the captives. He heals the sick and the infirm. Life confronts death, and life wins. The widow of Nain goes out to bury her son, and Jesus interrupts his death with life. Jairus’ daughter is not dead, she is but sleeping. Young girl, I say to you, arise. And who can forget Lazarus, that dear friend of Jesus, the brother of Mary and Martha. Larazus, whose death-wrought body stank for three days in the grave. Lazarus, Jesus called to him, come forth.

And of course, who can forget the very death of our Lord for our life? It is finished, he cried out in death. But even in Jesus’ death, life will spring forth. Jesus is always about bringing the dead to life, including Himself. He is all about giving hope to the hopeless, joy to the sorrowing, and peace to those conflict and pain. That is His work.

That is what Philip Nicolai was thinking as he wrote our sermon hymn, Wake, Awake. Nicolai lived in an age not unlike our own. Germany was a constant battleground for religious wars. Just a few short years after Nicolai composed this hymn, one of the longest wars in history, the thirty years war, began. And as for Nicolai, his town was suffering through the bubonic plague. Fourteen hundred dead in one year. In one day Nicolai buried thirty members of his parish.

One day as Pastor Nicolai looked out of his study over the graves of his flock, the words of the watchman came to him, Wake, awake, for night is flying, the watchmen on the heights are crying, awake, Jerusalem, arise. Nicolai thought of where the hope of the Christian lies. It does not lie in material wealth or riches. It does not lie in good friends, faithful neighbors, a nice neighborhood. It doesn’t lie in earthly safety and security. The hope of the Christian doesn’t even lie in life itself, at least, not life here. For we all can see at times how fleeting life may be. No, the hope of the Christian lies in the forgiveness of sins, the resurrection of the body, and the life of the world to come.

This is so different than the hope of the world. For the world, hope lies in what we can see and touch. But not for you, o Christian. Not for the baptized. For us, our hope lies in the Word of God which created the world. Our hope lies in the Word made flesh to took our flesh to the cross and death. Our hope then lies in the Word of God that is given out this day, preached, heard, eaten and drunk. Our hope lies in what God gives us by the almighty power of His Word, not by the fleeting things of this life.

This great, this wonderful reality is what defines us as Christians. This is what gives us the freedom and the drive to sing these great and wonderful hymns of yesterday and today. This is what drives us to reflect upon God’s Word, to drink deep of the Gospel, and to revel and rejoice in what God gives this day.

But sadly, many today do not hear the Gospel. Life the foolish virgins in our parable, they wait until another time which will never come. The oil of faith is for this life, for at the last day, it will be too late to receive the gifts of forgiveness of sins, life and salvation.

It is for that reason that we sing. We sing to proclaim His message from the mountain tops. We sing to rejoice in what God has given us in His Son. We sing, not the weak, pathetic song of the world, songs that come and go, songs that change with each passing fad and generation. No, we sing the song of the ages, we sing the message that is from the Ancient of Days and yet is ever new and creative. When you look at a hymn like Wake, Awake, or Rejoice, Rejoice Believers, which we sang at the procession, these hymns speak of things greater and more wonderful than what we struggle with and experience today.

Your life, O Christian, is just beginning. Many of us have lost loved ones, family and friends this past year. It is hard, in the fact of death and sorrow, to sing and rejoice in the resurrection of the body. Yet that is exactly what we do. We rejoice and sing because Jesus will come again and bring us home to be with Him. We rejoice and sing because Christ has risen from the dead, and that the dead in Christ will rise first. When you are united with Christ, you are united with His death and His resurrection.

Where does that uniting finally happen? That uniting with Christ happens, perhaps more than anywhere else, in the Sacrament of the Altar, the Lord’s Supper. Pastor Nicolai understood this in our hymn. In our translation of the hymn, the second stanza ends with this call to join our Lord. It is translated “we answer all, in joy your call, we follow to the wedding hall.” Well, in German, the final word there isn’t wedding hall, but Abendmahl, or evening meal. It’s one of the words used in German for the Lord’s Supper. In other words, when Jesus calls us to the wedding banquet, He does so by calling us here, to this Altar, to His holy meal of body and blood. That is your link to His death and resurrection. Everything comes together here. Heaven and earth intersect. Death and life. Sorrow at loss and joy at gain. Our Lord joins Himself to you here and gives you His very life.

That, dear friends, is what the Christian life is all about. It’s all about Christ and His great work for you. As we close another church year in Jesus name, we remember Him in His meal, and follow Him where He calls us. Rejoice! Jesus is coming soon. Rise up to greet Him. Believe it for Jesus’ sake. Amen.

The peace of God, which passes all understanding, keep your hearts and minds in true faith, unto life everlasting. Amen.