Wait and Watch -- Matthew 25:1-13 • Geoff Bradford

Well, I want to invite you to turn in your bulletin or in your Bible or look on the screen as I'm going to be reading from Matthew chapter 25 verses one through 13. This was actually a sermon that was supposed to be a few weeks ago, December 13, but I got sick and we had to rearrange all these sermons in our advent series. So I'm preaching this today and actually preaching the one for today, which will come up in March. We're going to hit all these, but it's just going to take us a little while.

Matthew 25:1-13 — The Parable of the Ten Virgins

Matthew 25 verses one through 13. Would you read with me?

Then the kingdom of heaven will be like ten virgins who took their lamps and went out to meet the bridegroom. Five of them were foolish and five were wise. For when the foolish took their lamps, they took no oil with them. But the wise took flasks of oil with their lamps. As the bridegroom was delayed, they all became drowsy and slept. 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. 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. — Matthew 25:1-13

This is the word of the Lord. Thanks be to God. Would you pray with me? Father, I pray that my words, Lord, would reflect your heart this morning. Lord, I pray that the words of my mouth and the meditations of all of our hearts would be pleasing in your sight. Lord, you are a rock and our redeemer. We pray this in Christ's name. Amen.

The Bachelor and The Bachelorette

There are two TV shows that have been a mainstay of the last twenty years of American TV: The Bachelor and The Bachelorette. The Bachelor, I think, had its twenty-fifth season this year and The Bachelorette is in its sixteenth season. If you're not familiar with the show, it's a reality TV show where twenty-five compete for one. On The Bachelorette, 25 men are competing for the hand of the one woman, the bachelorette. On The Bachelor, 25 women are competing for the hand of the man, the bachelor.

The show has all of the trappings and looks like everything that Americans think of when they think of romantic love. It's got all the fireworks. They go on great dates. They go on hot air balloon rides and picnics and rides in the park. They wear beautiful clothes. The music—everything is set up to look like a fairy tale. And yet, if you're a normal TV watcher, you know that this is TV. This is not real life.

In fact, I did some research on both shows and found out some things I didn't know. On The Bachelor and The Bachelorette, only one person on each of the shows makes any money—that's the one person that everybody's competing for. Everyone else competes on the show for free. They leave their jobs. They spend a lot of money on clothes and they hope that they win, but they don't get paid anything.

The engagement ring that the couple gets at the end of the season is not theirs to keep. It's only theirs to keep if their relationship lasts longer than two years. Otherwise, they have to give it back.

They don't eat on any of the dates. The shows display all these beautiful arrays of food, but one bachelor star revealed that they eat ahead of time in their hotel rooms because, quote, "nobody looks good on camera while eating." So they eat ahead of time.

And finally, for the winning couples, the time that they actually spend together is really short. One former bachelorette told Women's Health Magazine that when all was said and done, she had spent only seventy-two hours with the man who won. Seventy-two hours together over a handful of dates—and that's enough to determine compatibility.

So if you're a discerning TV watcher, you know that this isn't real. It approximates something real. It can look real. It stirs up emotions within viewers. That's why people watch this show—because it's the fairy tale. It's what we want to believe is true. It's choreography. It's pantomime. It's an act.

Today we're finishing up a series in our advent series on the Olivet Discourse of Jesus.

These are some teachings that Jesus did the last week of his life right before he was crucified, and it's all about his second coming. This comes from a long tradition of the church over centuries that has spent some of the season both looking back to Jesus's first advent but also looking ahead to the advent which is to come—his second arrival, his second coming.

Today, we look at this parable that Jesus teaches, and it's much like the bachelor or the bachelorette. It's also about a relationship. It's also about a wedding and it's also about what looks real versus what is real.

Let me give a little credit. I do want to give credit for a number of things from my teaching to a writer named Ben Witherington in a book called Jesus Through Middle Eastern Eyes. Let's walk through this parable together.

Jesus starts the parable this way: "The kingdom of heaven is like..." and then he goes on to describe a wedding. I know that for many of us, you've been to or seen maybe many weddings, maybe you've been in weddings, but first century Jewish weddings are both very similar and very different from modern American weddings. So let me just kind of define some of this.

How First Century Weddings Were Different

First, they're way less formal. Our wedding celebrations are planned out months in advance down to the minute. I've worked with brides planning for weddings where everything is set up down to the minute. They have an Excel spreadsheet for the day and a wedding is about thirty-five minutes. In that day, it was much less formal. An entire town would be invited. The weddings were slower, much more organic. They didn't have a definite start time—and we're going to see this in this parable.

And yet, they're similar too. They're still about family and friends and a celebration. They're still about a big party. Jesus, it's interesting how often Jesus talks about and points us to weddings. His first miracle was done at a wedding and he regularly points to weddings and calls himself in other places even the bridegroom. There's something about a wedding that shows us what he's like, what he came to do, and what his kingdom is like.

Jesus in the Parable

If you look at this parable, you can see immediately Jesus embeds himself in the parable. Who's Jesus in the parable? It's the groom. The bride is not mentioned. We know that there had to be a bride—you have to have a wedding—but she's not really a part of this the way that the story is told.

And yet there's a problem. The problem in this parable is that the groom's delayed. Now, that sounds strange for us. I got a card in the last two weeks from a couple saying, "Save the date. Save the date for next October." They already know what day and time everything's going to happen. And yet in first century Palestine, this would have made a lot of sense.

After the betrothal, after the groom asks the bride to marry him, he has to go and prepare. That literally means he has to go and prepare. He goes back home to his parents' house and with the aid of maybe a friend or two, builds a room onto the side of his parent's house. That's where he and his new wife will live. And if you know anything about construction, you know that construction is like an accordion. It can go really short or it can spread out.

If you've built anything, if you had anything built, you know that construction could take a short period of time. It could take a long period of time. Once the room would be built and ready, the groom would go back with friends to the home of the bride and get her, her family, and her friends. There would be a procession out from her house to his house. Of course, nobody knows when that would be because of the construction. They would have to be ready.

Jesus is teaching all these parables. They start in chapter 24 around this question: "Jesus, you're talking about your kingdom coming. When is that going to be?" And Jesus has told them, "No one knows the day or the hour, not the Son, not the angels in heaven, only the Father in heaven."

No one knows the day or the hour, not the Son, not the angels in heaven, only the Father in heaven. — Matthew 24:36

Just like this wedding, Jesus is saying, "I'm going to take some time to come back and you don't know when. I don't know when. It's unexpected." The bridegroom's arrival calls for the bridesmaids who are with the bride waiting at the house to be ready, to be prepared. It's currently taking longer than expected. All of them fall asleep. He's delayed. Jesus is delayed in coming back like the groom is delayed.

Now, all the talk that we have done over these last few weeks may sound strange to you.

Especially if you're not from one of those branches of Jesus's church that emphasizes all the time looking for Jesus coming back, there's a tendency I think among some Christians to act like, well, that's for the crazy people in Jesus' church. Those conspiracy theorists and those who like to wear tin hats and prognosticate about the future. But I want to emphasize the second coming. This is a major piece of Christian theology. This is a big thing—not for a weird branch of the church. This appears in the Nicene Creed, the Apostles' Creed. It's a basic thing.

And yet I know it's hard for us to imagine that the Lord Jesus Christ will return to earth and set up his kingdom on this soil—not American soil necessarily, but on the soil of this planet. He will set that up and everybody will see it. People with real bodies will be transformed in a moment into resurrected new creation bodies and will reign and celebrate and live with him on this planet. I mean, it's hard for us to imagine that, but I want to make one observation before we dig further into this parable. Did you catch the main backdrop to all of this? Jesus's kingdom is a celebration. It's a party. It's all of the best of eating and drinking and laughter and music and friends and family and celebration.

I don't know what you would consider the best meal of your life, but I can remember at least one of them for me. About 2009, right before we left Philadelphia to move here, Susan and I went out to eat with friends at this restaurant in Downtown Philly called Zahav. It's an Israeli restaurant, and we went with our friends, Jeff and Elizabeth King, who were part of our church. Jeff had a job where he was a waiter at one of the really top-end restaurants in Philly, and he's a foodie beyond all foodies. I mean, he's one of those people who just loves and savors good food.

So we're looking over this menu and Jeff did a lot of the ordering. The way he ordered must have indicated something to our waiter about this being a guy who really loves food. The waiter told us, "I'm sorry, one thing that's not on the menu tonight is the pomegranate lamb shoulder. That's not available tonight." Well, Jeff orders, and about five minutes later, the waiter comes back to our table and says, "Well, we actually found one for you. We found a pomegranate lamb shoulder for you." We eat this meal and I can't even tell you most of what we ate that night. It was unbelievable. It was one of the best meals I have ever had. In fact, the chef came out of the kitchen, came to our table to talk with my friend Jeff King because he savors and enjoys food that much and he was very intelligent in his conversation about that. It was an incredible feast of unbelievable food, friendship. It's slow, nobody's in a hurry. When I get home that night, Susan's not like, "Hey, are you still hungry? I kind of want a sandwich." No, we had feasted. We had this meal that was just satisfying in every way.

Have you had a meal like that? Maybe it's because of who you're with or what you're eating or where you are, but it's one of those meals where, like in Ratatouille, Remy's mouth, all the fireworks go off because it's that good a meal. And this is what Jesus is showing us. This is what his kingdom is like.

The True Nature of God's Kingdom

Too often, I'm afraid that a lot of Christians think of the new heavens and new earth—life on the other side of this life—sort of like a prolonged funeral service. You're wearing uncomfortable clothes, you're in a place you don't want to be, you don't want to really sing the songs or be part of this. It's uncomfortable in every way, and it's so sad because Jesus uses banquet imagery, feasting imagery, celebration, party imagery over and over.

I want you to think about the best meal you've had and some of your favorite people in the world, some of your favorite things to drink, some of your favorite music being played live by the performer that you love. Now I want you to put that in a blender and hit frappe. Just blend that up, and Jesus is saying, "This doesn't even touch. Your imagination doesn't even touch what my kingdom is like." I mean, it's like pigs in a blanket next to pomegranate lamb shoulder. Can I use that to describe? Is that sacrilegious to talk about the lamb of God? But brothers and sisters, I want us to be people who long for that.

If you're going on a vacation, you're going on a trip that you really anticipate.

It's really common for people to put pictures of that destination on the wallpaper of their phone or their computer or even tape a picture on your mirror in your bathroom. What are you doing in that? You're meditating on: man, I can't wait for that. Jesus holds this up for us—this image of feasting—so that we would long for this. Maybe for the first time.

I know that 2020 for many of us has been like someone throwing a bucket of cold water in your face. It's been a year of disappointment and sadness and frustration. I hope maybe for the first time, it's helped you to embrace like, yeah, this isn't working. This life isn't working. This world is not working. And maybe it allows you to hunger and thirst and put this on your wallpaper and say, I want that.

The Virgins and Their Lamps

Let's talk about the virgins. These are interesting story elements. The virgins and the lamps—this is not as foreign a concept as we might think. Virgins, just replace that word with bridesmaids and this story makes a lot of sense to us. Even in our culture, we love weddings that happen in the evening with sparklers, dim lighting, and lights in the dusk. This is a very common picture even in our weddings of the bridesmaids and lighting.

The bridegroom is gone and these 10 bridesmaids are tasked with having lamps that are prepared. When the groom and his friends come back, they are to light these lamps and take them with them on the journey to the groom's house. They light the pathway for the wedding party to go to the groom's house for the celebration. These lamps are like big dome-shaped contraptions made out of pottery with a rag in them and oil in the bottom. You had to have, in most cases, extra oil to dump in to keep it lit over a long period of time. This is a very common first century phenomenon.

Let's think about the virgins. All 10 of them are bridesmaids. It's not like five of them were the responsible ones and five are kind of the flakes, and the bride was like, well, I guess I have to ask those friends too. No. They were all tasked with the same thing. They were all tasked and—notice this—all of them fall asleep. I think that's something I didn't notice when I first looked at this. It's not like there are five bad ones who fall asleep and five good ones who stay awake. No, all 10 fall asleep. All of them get drowsy. All of them fall asleep. But here's the difference: five fell asleep in a wise kind of way and five fell asleep in a foolish kind of way. And those are Old Testament categories. They don't mean the good ones and the bad ones. It's the wise and the foolish.

So we need to think about this. Who are the bridesmaids? If Jesus is telling a parable, it's meant to communicate something. Who are the bridesmaids? Who would we put in that category? These are not just people who've been invited to the wedding. These are people that have been invited, have been tasked with a responsibility, who identify themselves in a very significant way with this bride and this groom. They're in. These are people who are actively identified with a wedding and the activity of the wedding. So who would that be for us? I think it's members of a local church. I think it's members of a local church.

The Visible and Invisible Church

Theologians make a distinction which maybe is new to us, but if you think about it for a moment, it makes a lot of sense. They talk about the difference between the visible church and the invisible church. Here's what that means.

The invisible church is the church from God's perspective. It's all people who are his in all times, in all places in history, and only he can see that. He can see all those people who are all of his sheep in all of time in history. Of course, we can't see that. We see only the visible church. That's the church from our perspective, from our point of view. It's those who profess faith and their children who are part of a local congregation.

This is how it works out in our church. When someone wants to become a member at CTK, we say you're going to need to meet with an elder. An elder sits down with that person and doesn't give them a theology exam. It's not an "are you ready to be a pastor tomorrow" exam. They ask questions to say: does this person appear to understand the gospel? Have they owned Jesus and his death and resurrection for themselves? Of course, an elder can't see perfectly in that moment or even many years after, unfailingly, if that's true—if that person really is in Christ or really is not in Christ. They can look at the fruits of the person's life, but they can't totally see that. So we do what we can.

We identify the visible church as we can, and the visible church are all those people—all of you who are invited. Every Sunday we do this: invited to the feast. When you join a church, you identify yourself. You say, "I'm identifying myself with the bride and the groom, with Jesus and his people. I'm owning some responsibilities. I'm in." That's what you say.

But here's the thing: the difference between the wise and the foolish is not good and bad. It's something else. It's the oil.

The Oil

The wise bridesmaids trim their lamps by having an extra flask of oil that they add to replenish the lamp. You may look at the scene and think, "Man, this feels like the New Testament version of Mean Girls." You've got the five wise ones and the five foolish ones asking, "Hey, can you loan us a little oil here?" And they say, "Negative. Sorry. Nope. Not going to do that." That seems really mean. Why would they do that?

Well, it's not harsh. If the wise ones brought just enough oil to replenish their lamps and they share it, that means it's not just five lamps that don't work anymore—it's ten. They're actually saying, "You gotta go get your own oil." They tell the foolish ones, "Go shopping right now." While they're gone to get more oil, the groom comes back and the wedding takes off with just the five of them. The other five are gone.

So what is the oil? It would be a mistake to look at this parable and say Jesus's main point must be "never fall asleep." You know, like you gotta be one of those people who's always awake for Jesus's coming back, as if you're supposed to live your life on pause—red alert, hit the panic button. "Jesus could come back tomorrow, I need to not apply for that job, not apply for school, not move on with my life, not pay the bills." There's a book in the New Testament about a church that lives that way, but that isn't Jesus's point.

The difference is falling asleep in a wise way and falling asleep in a foolish way. The bridesmaids who didn't have any extra oil ran out to the local convenience store to get some more oil. When they show up at the groom's house, they call out, "Hey, let us in." The groom sticks his head out the door or window and says, "I'm sorry, I don't know you."

"I Don't Know You"

This is where the parable gets hard. Why does he say, "I don't know you"? This is where we move away from parable and toward Jesus's instruction for us.

In Matthew 7, Jesus in his Sermon on the Mount gave this illustration about those who come to him at the end and say, "Lord, Lord," and Jesus says, "I don't know you." That word "know" doesn't mean "I don't recognize you." It means "I don't acknowledge you as part of my people."

This phrase is used over and over in the Bible. Genesis 18 says:

God knew Abraham — Genesis 18

He acknowledged him as part of his people. Exodus 33:

God knew Moses — Exodus 33

And Nahum 1:

God knows those who are his — Nahum 1

In John 10, Jesus says:

I'm a good shepherd. I know my sheep and my sheep know me and they follow my voice and they do what I say — John 10

Knowing is being one of his people. So when Jesus says, "I don't know you" to those foolish bridesmaids and to people today, that should rattle us a little bit.

Dietrich Bonhoeffer said of this: "The coming of God truly is good news, but it's also frightening news. For anyone who has a conscience, only when we have felt the terror of this can we feel the kindness of it."

See, Jesus is kind in giving this parable. He's saying, "There's a warning here. Are you for real?"

What does it mean to be ready? It's not about morality. It's not that the good ones do everything right and the bad ones don't. It's the wise and the foolish. Both of them fall asleep. It's not about moral perfection or getting it right all the time. It's about the oil.

The oil shows us there are some things that you have to have for yourself. You can't borrow them. You have to own them for yourself.

In the Old Testament, if you do a study on oil and what it represents, you'll find that God instructed his people to use oil for the consecration of priests and prophets and kings, and it symbolized the presence of God's Holy Spirit. In fact, there's an interesting picture in Zechariah, the prophet. He gives this illustration.

He saw this vision of a giant golden lampstand, like a giant menorah, and on either side of it were olive trees dripping oil into bowls that fed the lampstand and its fire. This is what Zechariah said when he saw this vision. This is what he was told by God:

Not by might nor by power but by my spirit, says the Lord of hosts — Zechariah

The oil represents the spirit of God, and it creates light. The light of the spirit operates today like it did then, showing us the brightness that displays both the beauty and holiness of God and also the failures and sins of his people.

I wonder about your house. None of us probably have oil lamps we use regularly, but I bet a lot of you have flashlights. A really bright flashlight. I want to use this to think about what the spirit's job is to do. If the spirit is the one who brings this light, the job of the spirit is to do two things: to shine this incredible light onto Jesus, to show who he is, what his attributes are, how glorious he is, how desirable he is. And at the same time, the spirit's light shines on us.

When you go to a restaurant, they don't turn the lights up really brightly, do they? A really nice restaurant dims the lights because everybody looks good under dim light. Under bright light, you see all the wrinkles and the defects. You see all the things that are wrong, even wrong with your food. The spirit shines brightly, showing us Christ and showing us ourselves. He brings conviction of sin and conviction of righteousness. That's the role of the spirit. He makes Jesus look really good because Jesus is really that good.

The Pattern of a Wise Christian

There's a regular dynamic in the life of a real Christian, a wise bridesmaid. It goes like this: more and more of seeing our need for Jesus, more and more of wanting Jesus, more and more of loving the beauty of Jesus, more and more of moving toward Jesus. That's why the wise bridesmaids have an abundance of oil. There's a regular wanting, a regular wanting to confess and repent of sin and move toward Jesus. Not one and done, not one time in your life, but regularly. A regular pattern of this is what happens in the life of a wise bridesmaid, of a real Christian.

When I say the word repentance, sometimes people think, "Oh, you Christians, you just love to feel bad." As if the point of confessing sin in our service or calling ourselves to repent is about feeling really bad. That is not at all the point. Repentance is not about feeling bad. It's about wanting Jesus more. It's about desiring him, about understanding the deep need that you have and the deep fountain of grace that he gives.

Repentance is about a ferocious desire to know Jesus more deeply, experiencing more and more of conviction of sin and the bright light of the spirit. And when you're ready to repent, you go, "I want to change. I just don't know how to." That's the life of repentance, and that's the difference really between wise and foolish bridesmaids.

Everybody experiences some awareness of sin in your life. I hope you do. I hope there's some experience of that in your relationships, in your work, where you realize that you hurt people, you do things wrong, you're selfish. And everybody except for maybe a sociopath would feel bad about those things. But a foolish bridesmaid runs from that feeling and runs from seeing that. So, no oil. A foolish bridesmaid tries to minimize those feelings. A wise bridesmaid runs to Jesus. A wise bridesmaid has extra oil because she runs to Jesus and not away in moments of conviction of sin.

Remember, it's not about moralistic perfection. All of them fall asleep. It's about wise and foolish. Five fell asleep in a foolish way, five fell asleep in a wise way. Holiness in the life of a believer is also not what most people think it is. It's not some kind of goodness you fill up in your life and you're just a really good person. In the Bible, we see holiness is a dynamic. It's a regular movement toward the light of the spirit inside of you. It's not about being perfect or better than other people. It's what's happening on the inside as you're constantly running to him.

There are just some things that you can't borrow. You can't borrow. You have to have them for yourself. Holiness is one of those things. This is why in Hebrews, we read:

Without holiness, no one will see the Lord — Hebrews

So here's the question for us this morning: Are you for real? Are you a wise or a foolish bridesmaid?

So sure, you're here as a part of the visible church. That's a great thing. You've received the invitation. You're identified with Jesus and his people. You've even maybe owned some responsibilities. But only the Lord knows who are his, who are really his, and it's demonstrated by a lifestyle of running to him in moments of conviction or running away from him.

Now, that makes a lot of sense, and a lot of this teaching on eternity. When old Anglican preacher JC Ryle said this—doesn't it make sense how many people will say things like this: "Well, I hope to get to heaven one day." He said, "Would you enjoy it? If you run from Jesus in this life, are you going to run to him in eternity? Are you going to want to be with him?"

See, here's the question: Are you for real?

Back to The Bachelor and The Bachelorette. When I was looking up stats on how many of the couples actually last, I came across this story that really grabbed me. A few years ago, one former Bachelorette named Desiree Hartsock had everything set up with one of the contestants named Brooks. She was engaged to him on the show. And later on, she ends up marrying another contestant. In other words, she discerned that something about the relationship that she had on the show—wow, it looked real. It was filmed with all these glorious dates and all the trappings of like love and romance. It sounded real. It had all the glitz and glamor. It wasn't real. And then she did something that was both really brave and really crazy—she broke it off. She broke off the relationship only to find real love, lasting love with another contestant. And I love this story because it looks the same but it's completely different.

So here's my invitation: Maybe this morning, you've recognized something in you—that you are a foolish bridesmaid. That your faith looks real from the outside, you're part of the visible church, but when it's really all said and done, it's not. There's just some things you can't borrow. It's not real.

And the bravest thing that you can do today—maybe you feel like the craziest thing—is like that couple. It's to reject the fake and embrace the real.

I want you to really think about this. This is so important. Eternity is on the line. The wisest thing you can do if you discover that you're a foolish bridesmaid is ask God to make you wise. To help you see. Eternity is on the line. There will come an end of this life and even this age where we stand before the Lord Jesus and he either says, "I know you, welcome into the party," or, "I never knew you. I never knew you."

Look, this matters. It makes all the difference in the world.

So I want to invite you this morning—whether you're here with us present or you're home—to examine your hearts. Every time we come to the table together, we have an opportunity. Jesus has laid out clearly before us. We get to see his body, his blood for us, and it's a moment for us every week of self-examination and also looking to him. It actually models exactly what the Spirit does—the Spirit that makes Jesus look really good and helps me see how much I need him.

Let me pray for us. Father, I pray that you would help us in the light of the Spirit this morning to know if we are for real or not, and to run toward Jesus. Lord, all of us need the same thing. All of us have the same problem, and all of us need the same thing: more of him. More delighting in him, more knowing him, more running to him. Lord, we pray that you would make us wise bridesmaids. We pray this in Christ's name. Amen.