Matthew 24:36-25:46; Mark 13:32-37; Luke 21:34-38
Therefore you also must be ready, for the Son of Man is coming at an hour you do not expect.
Matthew 24:44 (cf., Luke 12:40)
Are you ready for Christ’s return? Are you awake and watchful? No? Why not? Perhaps you think that since He has delayed thus far that He will continue to delay even longer, maybe indefinitely. Maybe He will delay — or maybe He won’t. You don’t know. But even if He delays another thousand years, you still don’t know when your own final day will come. And we should all recognize that we cannot push that one off indefinitely. So, are you ready?
See also:
Am I ready? Hmmm…
Frankly, I am always a bit confused by the parable of the virgins with the lamps. Surely God wants us to share our resources? But is Jesus saying, not if we do not have enough for ourselves?
Truly, if you look at it from this context, we ourselves come first, and our need for “enough” (however we define it, and Americans truly have skewed vision of enough) is the guide to giving. Is that true?
Yet I ask, what profit is it if everyone’s lamp goes out?!?!
Only when I remember that oil is a metaphor for the Holy Spirit does this make sense. Jesus’s audience would have known that. Anointing oil was and is used as a sign of the Spirit. Oil for our lamps is another way to signify our Light is from the indwelling of the Spirit. I cannot fill your lamp with my oil of the Spirit—each person needs to seek it individually. And like lamp oil, we need to continuously renew our supplies…
Go and buy it now!
This should be a reminder to us to be careful in how we interpret parables and that we need to focus on the main point, not the “extra” details. The Parable of the Virgins has nothing to say about sharing our resources, whether physical or spiritual. Neither is it a commentary on the virtues of virginity. It is instead entirely about readiness. That is not to say that Jesus (or the Bible as a whole) has nothing to say about our helping one another or about sexual purity. It’s just that we do not (and should not try to) find that commentary here.
Did you hear it?
David Brannen used to call it “God’s holy echo” when we see a message in scripture, then maybe hear it in a sermon, or perhaps a friend comments on the same thing in a conversation. It happened yesterday for me when the gospel reading and Daniel’s sermon were about the parable of the maidens with the lamp!
While the central message of the story is to be ready, there are also other layers of meaning in that message.
For example, as Daniel pointed out, the next (big) question is “How do we become ready?” because we will not be recognized at the door if we are not. We will not be known. Our relationship with God, having our own “oil,” makes us ready.
Daniel also emphasized that the parable indicates how God often makes us wait, sometimes longer than we expect. Maybe much longer…
I am challenged to wait on God’s timing and be ready—every day.
God has gotten my attention with his “holy echo” —has anyone else heard an echo recently? 😄
Hello! … Hello! … Hello!
Are you ready? … ready? … ready?