Emmanuel Lutheran Church

Sermon for Last Sunday after Trinity

1 Thessalonians 5:1-11  +  Matthew 25:1-13

The world doesn’t believe in the coming Christ, even as the world doesn’t believe in the Christ who once came. The world lives in darkness—the darkness of ignorance, the darkness of wickedness, the darkness of unbelief. But not so you Christians. Like the Thessalonian Christians to whom Paul once wrote, you are not in darkness. You are all sons of light and sons of the day. So the Spirit of Jesus calls out to you today—to you who have the light of His Word and the faith that has been kindled by it—live differently than those who don’t believe in Jesus, who don’t know or believe that there is a Last Day approaching. Be wise and wait for the Bridegroom to come, that you may enter with Him into His Church Triumphant!

In the Gospel, Jesus teaches His disciples another lesson about the kingdom of heaven. The kingdom of heaven is the Christian Church, the assembly of the baptized, on earth and in heaven. Now, in heaven, the Church is truly pure and spotless. All those who reach the Church in heaven were true believers in Christ here on earth who persevered in the faith until the end. They overcame all the enemies who fought against them during their earthly lives: the devil, the world, and their own flesh, and they can never fall away, never fall back out of the Church. That’s why we call it the “Church Triumphant.” The Church here on earth, in the broad sense, at least, is a mixed bag, with true believers and false Christians living side by side, all calling themselves Christians. Here on earth Christians can still be attacked and tempted to turn away from the faith of Christ, and the faithful can abandon the faith or become lukewarm and indifferent. We call it the Church Militant here below, because, here on earth, we’re always fighting and battling, not against flesh and blood, but against the devil and against the threat of falling away.

So Christ issues an earnest warning in today’s Gospel, urging His true believers to keep watch, to prepare for His coming, to expect Him at any time, but to be wisely prepared for a lifetime of waiting.

It’s like ten virgins, He says, who went out to meet the bridegroom and his bride on their march to the wedding hall. The bridegroom is Christ Jesus, the heavenly Bridegroom who shed His blood for His Bride, the Church, and cleansed her of her sins with baptismal waters. He pledged Himself to this Bride and promised to come back to get her, so that they could be married in a great spiritual marriage and live side by side together in the heavenly Paradise. The Bride in this parable is the Church Triumphant as it will be in heaven when Christ returns.

But He didn’t say when exactly He was coming. In fact, He intentionally hid the day and the hour of His coming and simply called on His people to wait for Him, and to be ready when He does finally come.

So, who are these ten virgins in the parable? They’re not all people. They are individual members of the Church Militant. But, even so, they don’t represent all people who call themselves Christians.

There are some called “Christians” who rarely set foot in a church. They’re called Christians because their parents told them that’s what they were, maybe even had them baptized as infants. They think they believe in God. But they don’t care about hearing the word of Christ or receiving the body and blood of Christ in the Sacrament, and they certainly aren’t concerned about living their lives in preparation for Christ’s coming. Such people are truly Christians-in-name-only and will by no means enter the wedding hall with the Bridegroom, unless they repent before the Last Day with a living faith.

There are others called “Christians” who teach and adhere to false doctrines that strike at the heart of the Christian faith, from the pope and his works-righteous, idolatrous, Antichristian doctrines; to the liberal “Christians” in America, including many “Lutherans,” who embrace immorality, twist the Scriptures, and deny that Christ alone saves; to many who embrace the “Evangelical” emptiness of the feel-good, how-to-have-a-better-life-on-earth theology. These all maintain an outward semblance of Christianity while denying its chief Biblical teachings. And in some cases, they also persecute the true Christian faith and its followers. They live their life for this world, and if they are preparing for Christ to come at all, they’re not awaiting the arrival of the real Jesus, but of a false christ of their own making. They are fooling themselves if they think they’ll enter the wedding hall with the Bridegroom, unless they repent before the Last Day with a living faith.

But the ten virgins in Jesus’ parable are all true believers, true Christians who start out eagerly awaiting the arrival of the Bridegroom, eagerly hoping to be numbered among the saints and included in the Church Triumphant. They’re baptized. They go out with their lamps to wait for Christ, living in daily repentance, diligent in prayer, committed to walking by the Spirit.

But some are foolish, and some are wise. They all have the opportunity to get plenty of oil to last the whole night. Five bring along extra oil, in case the bridegroom is delayed. But the other five only bring along what’s already in their lamps, counting on a quick arrival of the wedding party.

The light is faith, faith that keeps burning, keeps trusting in Jesus and His mercy, keeps looking to Him for all good things, especially the forgiveness of sins and eternal life. To have faith at the coming of Christ is the thing that determines where you’ll spend eternity.

But the Scriptures don’t teach the heresy of “once saved, always saved.” The Scriptures don’t teach, “once a believer, always a believer.” What the Scriptures do teach is that faith, like a flame, needs to be fed. What the Scriptures do teach is that faith comes by hearing, and hearing, by the Word of Christ. The ministry of the Word—preaching, teaching, absolution, the Sacrament of the Altar—is the oil in the lamp, the means by which God feeds the faith that God the Holy Spirit first created.

What the Scriptures also teach is that God has committed Himself to providing all that is necessary for His believers to persevere in faith until the end, as we reviewed together this past Wednesday at our Thanksgiving service. He’ll provide His Word and Sacrament, and ministers to administer them. He’ll provide opportunities for prayer and He’ll hear those prayers. He’ll guide and strengthen His people by His Spirit to lead holy lives here on earth. And He’ll help His people to bear up under the cross, to overcome the assaults of Satan and every evil, and to survive all the hardships and suffering that fill this world, all the way up until the day of the Bridegroom’s return.

So what does it look like to be wise in the kingdom of heaven? It looks like the five virgins who were prepared for a whole nighttime—for a whole lifetime—of waiting. The wise Christians use the means of grace as long as they can. They go to church regularly and take advantage of the ministry of the Word as long and as often they can. They learn the Scriptures and study them. They put aside hypocrisy, malice, hatred and bitterness. They fight against the sinful flesh. They live in daily repentance. They pray. They do works of love, according to their own vocations. And they bear the cross with patience. And they teach their children to do the same, although they can’t believe for their children; their children will also have to use the means God has provided for themselves. Their children will also have to prepare for a lifetime of waiting.

The foolish Christians hear Christ’s urgent pleas to prepare and keep watch, but they foolishly don’t listen. They started out well enough. But then they get tired of the uncomfortable Christian life. They get entangled in earthly concerns. They may still go to church, when it’s convenient, but if they miss hearing the preaching of the Word and if they miss the Sacrament for a while, it really doesn’t bother them anymore; they find no urgency in it. They don’t worry about their sins anymore. Their heart doesn’t long for Christ’s coming anymore. And their faith becomes an empty shell, like an empty oil lamp.

When the Bridegroom comes, those foolish Christians will find out just how foolish they were to squander their time of grace and to allow their faith to flicker and die. They’ll hear from Jesus those terrible words, Assuredly, I say to you, I do not know you. They won’t enter heaven with the Church Triumphant. Instead they’ll be locked out forever, with the pagans and with the devil worshipers and with the Muslims, both the peaceful ones and the militant ones. Because being a Christian isn’t about following certain traditions or hanging crosses in your house. Being a Christian is a matter of having a living, burning faith in Christ Jesus.

The wise, on the other hand, will finally see the Bridegroom face to face. They will join the wedding procession and become part of the Church Triumphant, and their joy will know no end. Christ will have kept all His promises, including His promise to come at last to rescue His Church from this dying world. And the faithful will not be disappointed.

Dear Christians, it’s not too late. If you notice that you have started to grow indifferent toward Christ and His Word, if you see that your love for your neighbor has begun to grow cold, if you find that you haven’t been giving much thought at all to the arrival of the Bridegroom, then now is the time to fill your lamps and vessels again. Now is the time to receive the absolution, to feed on Christ’s body and blood for the forgiveness of sins, and to renew your zeal in preparing for eternity.

There is plenty of oil yet to be bought—though not for money. The Lord Christ has seen fit to preserve the preaching of His Word here in our midst for a while longer. But who knows for how long? The whole season of Advent is especially geared toward helping Christians to be prepared for Christ’s coming. Support the ministry of the Word here and abroad, with your presence, with your attention, with your offerings and with your prayers. Pray often. Come to Bible class. Read your Bibles at home.

The Christian life is not a spectacular, one-time “event.” It’s a slow and steady burn, like the little flame of an oil lamp, marked by a steadfast faith that constantly clings to Christ. Your life on earth, your time of waiting for Christ, may be short, or it may be long. It doesn’t matter. If it’s short, then you will enter the Church Triumphant sooner. If it’s long, then God will provide all the means necessary to keep you safe until He comes. But one of those means is the word of Jesus to you in today’s Gospel: Watch therefore, for you know neither the day nor the hour in which the Son of Man is coming. So listen to Jesus. Watch, and keep watching. The Bridegroom will come soon enough. And, by watching and using the means God provides, you will be prepared to join the joyful wedding procession into the great heavenly hall. Amen.

Sermon for the Second-to-Last Sunday after Trinity (Trinity 26)

2 Peter 3:3-14  +  Matthew 25:31-46

Are you tired yet? Tired of running around? Tired of nagging health problems? Tired of dealing with difficult people? Tired of reading the news and watching society collapse all around you? Tired of uncertainty, of loneliness, of looking in the mirror and seeing that incorrigible sinner staring back at you?

Then listen: When the Son of Man comes in His glory, and all the holy angels with Him, then He will sit on the throne of His glory.

It all has an end—all the running and chasing and toiling, all the mourning and suffering and sinning. The Son of Man—our dear Lord Jesus—is coming. And all the company of heaven with Him. And He will reign in glory. And all the troubles of earth will fade away.

Of course, Jesus won’t begin to sit on His throne on the Last Day. He sits there already. Since the day of His ascension, God the Father seated Him at His right hand in the heavenly places, far above all principality and power and might and dominion, and every name that is named, not only in this age but also in that which is to come. And He put all things under His feet, and gave Him to be head over all things to the church, which is His body, the fullness of Him who fills all in all.

The ascension of Christ was the beginning of His reign in this New Testament—the reign of the Son of Man. Already Christ sits on His heavenly throne in His kingdom of grace. Already He exercises His divine authority to govern the affairs of this world. Already He sends His Spirit wherever He chooses and brings people into His kingdom and rules over the hearts of believers. He, the eternal Word of God, by whom all creation was made in the beginning, still holds all things together in the universe. Christ will not begin to reign when He comes on the Last Day. It will be the culmination of His reign—the beginning of His reign in visible glory.

It’s all been leading up to this, since before the foundations of the world were laid. God foresaw man’s sin and rebellion. So even before the world was made, God included the end of the world in His plans. This universe was never meant to last forever. God brought the earth forth out of water, as Peter mentions in the Gospel. He will bring it to an end through fire, as Peter also declares. His Word created it. His Word will bring it to a close, as His Word even now declares.

Part of that plan from the beginning was also the judgment of the world, since God foreknew man’s sin and rebellion against Him. And part of that plan was also a way for sinners to escape the impending judgment. God would send His Son, the Word, into the world to be the world’s Redeemer and Reconciler, to suffer in sinners’ place the death and condemnation that they had earned for themselves. God would send this Gospel into the world and with it, His Holy Spirit, so that men might believe in Christ and His sacrifice for them on the cross, and so be reconciled to Him and saved on the day of wrath.

And so the basis for the final judgment was set in stone before the foundations of the world were laid. All whom God would graciously bring to faith in His Son and keep in the faith until the end would be the sheep on the right hand of Jesus the Judge, while all who would stubbornly cling to their idols in unbelief would be the goats on His left.

Jesus, in our Gospel today, doesn’t describe how the sheep came to be sheep or how the goats came to be goats. He makes it very clear in His Word that all men are born under His wrath and condemnation. As Paul writes to the Ephesians in chapter 2: We all once conducted ourselves in the lusts of our flesh, fulfilling the desires of the flesh and of the mind, and were by nature children of wrath, just as the others.

And as Jesus explains in John 3: He who believes in Him is not condemned; but he who does not believe is condemned already, because he has not believed in the name of the only begotten Son of God.

So when Jesus comes in glory and separates the sheep from the goats, He won’t be deciding at that moment who is who. He has known it from all eternity, and He has already made the judgment here in time, and He has already disclosed that judgment to us in His Word. He will simply be making the judgment known to all, and handing out eternal sentences to all people.

To those who are righteous by faith, He will say, Come, you blessed of My Father, inherit the kingdom prepared for you from the foundation of the world. And then He will commend them for all those deeds of love done for His brethren, His little Christians. For I was hungry and you gave Me food; I was thirsty and you gave Me drink; I was a stranger and you took Me in; I was naked and you clothed Me; I was sick and you visited Me; I was in prison and you came to Me.

What are these works that He praises? They’re everyday works of simple kindness shown to fellow believers. Works done, not to gain any prize, not to receive any praise, but out of genuine love for Christ and for those who bear His name. In the parable, He has them asking when they saw Him in need and helped Him. He tells the story this way in order to highlight the answer, the main point He wants to communicate to His disciples, and it’s this: that every good deed listed here, every diaper changed for a brother of Christ, every cup of cold water given to a Christian because he is a Christian is a service to Christ. He claims it as His own. He lifts up every single Christian man, woman and child to the same status—to the status of Christ Himself—and shows what a blessed thing it is (1) to be a Christian and (2) to serve a fellow Christian.

These works of kindness and service come from faith. They are the good works, which God prepared beforehand that we should walk in them. They are the evidence of the faith that the Holy Spirit has worked in their hearts, works that must necessarily follow faith, works which, if they are absent, demonstrate the lack of faith. As Jesus said, If a man abides in me and I in him, he will bear much fruit. Apart from Me you can do nothing.

And nothing is exactly what Jesus will find among the goats—nothing praiseworthy, nothing that is able to rescue them from everlasting condemnation. Then He will also say to those on the left hand, ‘Depart from Me, you cursed, into the everlasting fire prepared for the devil and his angels: for I was hungry and you gave Me no food; I was thirsty and you gave Me no drink; I was a stranger and you did not take Me in, naked and you did not clothe Me, sick and in prison and you did not visit Me.

Notice, the King in this parable doesn’t even bother listing all the sins the unbelievers committed, all the hating and killing and sexual immorality of which they never repented. Nor does it matter that they may have done countless deeds that appear good on the outside. Without faith, it is impossible to please God. No, it’s enough for their everlasting condemnation that they failed to offer a little everyday help to Christ’s brethren on earth. See again how He loves His people! And if He will avenge His brothers for these little sins of omission on the part of the unbelievers, how great will His judgment be for all the violent persecution and hateful deeds done against His precious sheep!

And these will go away into everlasting punishment, but the righteous into eternal life.

In view of all this, St. Peter concludes, Therefore, beloved, looking forward to these things, be diligent to be found by Him in peace, without spot and blameless. Of all the things that tire us and make us weary in this life of waiting for Jesus to come in glory, with all His holy angels, let us not grow weary in doing good, for in due season we shall reap if we do not lose heart. Yes, we shall reap an everlasting inheritance—incorruptible and undefiled and that does not fade away, reserved in heaven for you, who are kept by the power of God through faith for salvation ready to be revealed in the last time.

All the toil of this world has a blessed end for Christians. May the blessed hope of that day spur us on to face another tomorrow in this toilsome world, and to live in peace, to lead a spotless life, a blameless life, a life of service to your fellow Christians, starting right here and branching out as far as the Lord gives you opportunity. And may God—Father, Son and Holy Spirit—continue to keep us steadfast in faith until that day! Amen.