Todd A. Peperkorn, STM

Messiah Lutheran Church

Kenosha, Wisconsin

Trinity 27 (November 21, 2004)

Matthew 25:1-13

 

TITLE: “The End and the Beginning”

 

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, as well as St. Paul’s words from I Thessalonians 5: For God did not appoint us to wrath, but to obtain salvation through our Lord Jesus Christ, who died for us, that whether we wake or sleep, we should live together with Him. Therefore comfort each other and edify one another, just as you also are doing.

This is the time of year when we really are reminded of the end of all things.  It’s getting cold.  The leaves are dying.  I daresay that snow is almost in the air.  And it is at this time, when we consider the end of all things, that faith really comes into its own.  St. Paul tells us in Romans chapter ten: Faith comes by hearing, and hearing by the Word of God (Romans 10:17).

What do you hear?  Do you hear the promises of God as we look forward to a new heaven and a new earth?  Do you hear the watchman’s cry, Awake, Jerusalem, Arise!  For God is calling to us this day.  He is call to us to cast off the works of darkness.  He is calling us to rejoice in His gifts, to receive Him with thanksgiving, and to look forward to His return with great joy and gladness.  For Jesus is coming again, and at His returning His final judgment for you of not guilty will be heard through the heavens and the earth.  The Last Day is your day of vindication.  It is the day when your Baptism into Jesus’ death truly brings you out of the tomb and into His glorious light.  And what a glorious light it is!  What a great and wonderful day we all have ahead for us.

God, you see, did not appoint you to wrath, as St. Paul reminds us.  Our heavenly King, more than anything else in the whole world, wants you to join Him in the eternal courts of heaven.  He wants you to come to Jerusalem, the happy home, to be with Him forever.  God wants all of your sorrows gone.  He wants all of your sickness, all of your heartache, in fact all of your aches and pains of body, mind and soul to be gone forever.  God wants you to come to the new Eden, the new Jerusalem once again.

We, of course, do not see what great plans God has for us.  As our hymn this month says so well,

In blind revolt we would not see 

That rebel wills wrought death and night. 

We seized and used in fear and spite 

Your wondrous gift of liberty. 

We walled us in this house of doom, 

Where death had royal scope and room, 

Until Your servant, Prince of Peace, 

Broke down its walls for our release. (LW 319:2)

God, kindly, gently, patiently, comes into our world, to remake what we have messed up so royally.  For God will not let go of you, His chosen ones, His bride.  God sent His Son Jesus to come into our life.  He breathed our poisoned air.  He has taken your despair into Himself.  He has drunk the cup of God’s wrath for you.  And because He drank that cup, Your cup of blessing knows no end.

But God’s work is not finished even yet!  He bought your life back for you by His blood, and now His great plan of heaven for you now comes to you By His Word and Spirit.  The invitation goes out to one and all: come to the feast!  Like the bridegroom in ancient times who came to meet His bride, we do not know the day or the hour of His returning.  But imagine what a day it will be.  Every wrong made right. Your hope for the future is all there in His life and blood.

There are some who are already there, in a way.  Those baptized who have gone before us, who have fallen asleep in the Lord.  Jesus says that on the Last Day they will awake from their slumber, and will rise up to greet him.  Like those wise virgins who fell asleep with their lamps trimmed, our fathers and mothers in Christ died in Him.  And because they died in Him, they too will rise with Him on the Last Day.  Jesus’ resurrection from the dead after three days in the tomb is a picture of their resurrection from the dead, just as it is yours and mine as well.

But the resurrection from the dead is not only an event that happens far off in the future.  It is here and now.  Christ’s bride on the Last Day will be gathered together in Himself.  But he gathers you even now in His Holy Supper.  Isaiah put it this way:

For behold, I create new heavens and a new earth; And the former shall not be remembered or come to mind. But be glad and rejoice forever in what I create; For behold, I create Jerusalem as a rejoicing, And her people a joy.  I will rejoice in Jerusalem, And joy in My people; The voice of weeping shall no longer be heard in her, Nor the voice of crying.

 On the Last Day, when Jesus comes again in glory, things will be so new, so wonderful, that we won’t even remember the days of sin and sorrow.  The pain and suffering we face now because of sin will be gone, completely and utterly, forever.  But the beginning of all things new and the end of all of the former things happens in His Holy Meal even now, in our very midst.

But how do we know this?  We know this, dear baptized, because of God’s Spirit, who gives this to us in His Holy Word.  The wise virgins in our next knew that the most important thing to have in their dark night of waiting was the oil.  The oil is Jesus Himself.  Jesus’ name, the Messiah, after all means Anointed One.  He is anointed with the oil of gladness, as the Psalmist writes.  This oil is now theirs by faith that He Himself gives, just as He has always given it to His people. 

The wise virgins looked back at all God had done for His people.  God brought them out of the slavery in Egypt.  He led them by the pillar of cloud and the pillar of fire.  He brought them into Canaan, the Promised Land.  He brought them back from captivity in Babylon.  If our Savior would do all these things, then He will bring them, and us, through to the Promised Land of heaven itself.  The wise ones knew you cannot have too much Jesus, just as you cannot have too much oil.

Perhaps this is why the Church of Christ at the end of all things and the beginning of all things, rejoices in Him and in the gifts that He brings to us.  When we look to the end, we are really looking at the beginning, at how God makes all things new by His Word, Jesus Himself given to us.  Faith, you see, always looks to Christ, and can never get enough of Him.

God’s mercy is for you, and until we are reunited with all of Christ’s Church in heaven, we rejoice and look forward to that last great day.  Do not let these gray and latter days weigh you down.  Your life is one of praise, for His life is in you even now.  Look up!  Your king is coming soon.  Rise up to greet Him, and comfort one another with these words.  In Jesus’ name.

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