The Twenty-Second Sunday After Pentecost (I’m Just) Waiting on a Friend Grace, mercy, and peace to you from God our Father and our Lord and Savior Jesus Christ! Amen. Today’s Gospel is our Lord’s lovely parable of “ten virgins who took their lamps and went to meet the bridegroom.” Dear Christian friends: We all wait. All we do is wait. A man sits in a parking lot, drumming the steering wheel while he waits for his wife. She waits in line behind the lady with all the coupons. Toddlers wait to be the big kids. Adolescents await the mirage-independence of teenage years, only to arrive and discover that teens also must wait while their dreams pummel them. Gardeners wait for seeds to grow; then they await harvest; then the springtime planting again. Workers wait for retirement. Musicians wait for their big break. Doctors and patients wait for the body to heal. If you will wait for it, this sermon will end. To the observer, waiting is mundane and useless and irritating. Thirty seconds of waiting at the traffic light usually means that you pull out your smart phone. Even the microwave moves too slowly and sometimes it is better simply to eat cold food. Dangerous risks become acceptable when we grow tired of waiting—just ask the guy who passes you at 70 miles per hour on C Road. All we do is wait, and waiting seems a colossal waste: What has been done is what will be done There is nothing new under the sun (Ecclesiastes 1:9) The Scriptures of God add significance to our waiting. The Scriptures are full of expressions of waiting, and these expressions want us to know that our sensations of waiting are not nearly as useless as they feel. Our waiting has eternal importance: Thus it is written: • Wait for the Lord; be strong and let your heart take courage; wait for the Lord (Psalm 27:14). • I wait for the Lord, my soul waits, and in His Word I hope. My soul waits for the Lord more than watchmen wait for the morning, yes, more than watchmen wait for the morning (Psalm 130:5-6). • Blessed are all who wait for Him! (Isaiah 30:18). • It is good that one should wait quietly for the salvation of the Lord (Lamentations 3:26). • [We] wait for His Son from heaven, whom He raised from the dead, Jesus who delivers us from the wrath to come (1 Thessalonians 1:10). • [We are] waiting for our blessed hope, the appearance of the glory of our great God and Savior Jesus Christ, who gave Himself for us to redeem us (Titus 2:13-14a). • Today’s Gospel: “the kingdom of heaven is compared to ten virgins who took their lamps and went out to meet the bridegroom. [But] the bridegroom was delayed.” In light of these glorious things, perhaps there is a new approach and a new perspective we can take to our perpetual waiting everything. Stated another way, perhaps we Christians can look at the same things everyone else in the world is looking at, but maybe we can begin to see them in a whole different way. I Here are some examples of what I mean: • What does the unbelieving world see when it looks upon an infant child in his mother’s arms? It only sees an infant child in his mother’s arms. A Christian can look at that same child and see a living reminder of what our infinite God has done for us: descending from on high, humbling Himself to be born of a virgin, packing all of His limitlessness into the tiny frame of a newborn child. • What does the world see when it looks into the caskets of its dead? The world sees something that has ended forever. We Christians see something that has only just begun! • What does the unbelieving world see outside its window on a cold winter’s day? It sees a winter wonderland in the newly fallen snow. A Christian can look out the same window and see a fresh sample of that Word and promise God has spoken to you through your Lord Jesus Christ: “Though your sins are like scarlet, they shall be as white as snow” (Isaiah 1:18). • The world sees a starry night and the potential of an alien invasion; we perceive the glory of God and the carefully-crafted work of His hands. • The world sees springtime flowers; we see reminders of the resurrection. • The world sees a pine tree or a juniper; we see an evergreen symbol of that a life that cannot end. The world waits, but it has nothing to wait for. The world is drowsy and bored on account of its waiting. But drowsiness deadens your senses and boredom breeds unspeakable trouble. We all wait. All we do is wait. But God has so transformed our hearts and minds (Romans 12:2) that our waiting is now ANYTHING BUT a waste. All daily waiting—from waiting to grow older to waiting for your kids at a ball game—all daily waiting is a picture and a symbol and a rehearsal for the one and only thing that really matters; the one and only Person for Whom we truly wait. In Christ, our daily patience has become something more than a personal virtue that only other people seem to have in greater abundance than we do. Our daily patience is a confession of faith in Christ the Coming One. Wait upon the Lord, Christians, and keep your ears tuned in the direction of the sky: At midnight there was a cry, “Here is the Bridegroom! Come out to meet Him!” The Bridegroom came, and those who were ready [those who were there waiting] went in with Him to the marriage feast. _______________________________________________ Sermons mailing list [email protected] http://cat41.org/mailman/listinfo/sermons
