Tonight as we come again to the end of an old year and are just about ready to enter the new, I can’t help but wonder how many more new year’s eves I may be allowed to celebrate. I wonder if Lucile knew that new year’s eve 2008 would be her last. The Lord has graciously given me now 48 new year’s celebrations. Neither I nor you know how many more we will be given. Like Lucile, the Lord could take us home to be with Him at any time by way of our death. But tonight’s Gospel text also reminds us that He could come back at any time, even while we’re still alive, to take us to the heavenly banquet that He has prepared for all those who have longed for His coming. And so He tells us to be ready for it at all times.
He tells us how to be ready by commanding us to do three different things. First, He tells us to stay dressed for action. The actual words He uses are “Let your loins be girded.” To gird your loins was to pull up your robes to about your knees, so that you could move freely. A person girded his loins, when he was getting ready either to work or to travel. By saying, “Let your loins be girded,” Jesus is telling us to do two things: first, to be busy about the various vocations He given us in this life, and second, to be ready to leave at moment’s notice. Some Christians, when they hear about the Lord’s coming, think only about doing the latter. All they want to do is to go sit up on some hill and wait for His return. Others grow lazy and careless in their work, thinking, “It doesn’t matter if I’m sloppy or negligent. The Lord’s going to bring it all to an end anyway. I might as well cast off my responsibilities and live it up, while I can.” Eat, drink, and be merry, as it were. Contrary to this thinking, the Lord wants us to work. Work is not a bad thing; it’s not a curse. Rather, it’s the way we serve one another, providing for others in their need. It’s the way we express not only our love for one another, but also our love for God, as we live in obedience to His commandments.
So, the Lord wants us to continue to be faithful fathers and mothers, sons and daughters, employers and employees, etc., until the day He returns for us. In addition to all these earthly vocations, He also wants us to be faithful in our calling to be Christians. That means that whatever we do, we do as children of God, carrying the message of the Gospel of Jesus Christ with us wherever we go. Whenever we are asked about the hope that we have in Jesus, we are to be ready at all times to give an answer.
And so, we Christians keep our loins girded as we serve the Lord through the work He’s given us to do here on earth. But secondly, we keep our loins girded by being ready to leave this world at a moment’s notice. The Israelites had their loins girded on the night the Lord brought them out of Egypt. The Lord doesn’t want us to get the idea that this world is our permanent home. We are simply travelers and sojourners here. We have been purchased with the blood of Christ and baptized in His Name. We are now citizens of heaven. Though we may make use of the possessions the Lord has given us for a little while in this life, they are not to become our gods. Lot’s wife is an example of one who’s heart was bound to her earthly home and possessions. This is what caused her to look back at Sodom and Gomorrah, as the Lord poured out His judgment on them. For this act of disobedience she was turned into a pillar of salt. The Lord does not want us to cling to the temporary things of this life, but to Him alone. As St. Paul writes, “If then you have been raised with Christ, seek the things that are above, where Christ is, seated at the right hand of God. Set your minds on things that are above, not on things that are on earth. For you have died, and your life is hidden with Christ in God. When Christ who is your life appears, then you also will appear with Him in glory.”
This leads into the next commandment the Lord gives, in order that we might be ready for His coming, and that is to keep our lamps burning. The lamp here is the lamp of faith. Lit by the Holy Spirit as He worked through the Word and holy Baptism to bring us to faith in Jesus, we keep our lamps burning as we continue to receive the oil our faith needs to live on that comes from the Word and the Sacraments. This is pictured for us in the Lord’s parable about the 10 virgins, 5 of whom were wise, 5 of whom were foolish. The 5 were wise, because they brought enough oil with them to keep their lamps burning until the Bridegroom returned for them. The other 5 we’re foolish, because they forgot their oil. Those who had enough to keep their lamps burning were ready to enter into the wedding banquet when their Lord came for them; those whose lamps were going out for lack of oil we’re not ready, and for this reason they were left out. The lesson is that we remain ready for the Lord’s coming, as long as we remain on the receiving end of the Word, Baptism, and the Lord’s Supper. Through these God keeps our faith alive. If we withdraw from these or aren’t careful to remain in them, our flames of faith will go out. We will not be waiting for our Lord’s coming. Like Lot’s wife our hearts will be in other places. We will not be ready for the Lord when He returns, and so we will be left out.
But remaining in His Word and Sacraments not only keeps our lamps lit, it also helps us do the third thing our Lord commands, and that is to be like those who are waiting for their master to come home from the wedding feast, so that they might open the door to Him at once when He comes and knocks. Our Lord, though with us always in both body and soul just as He promises to be, is not with us face to face at this time. He has gone to receive His kingdom. He ascended into heaven to be seated at the right hand of God the Father Almighty. St. John describes this scene in Revelation 5, where he writes, “Then I looked, and I heard around the throne and the living creatures and the elders the voice of many angels, numbering myriads of myriads and thousands of thousands, saying with a loud voice, ‘Worthy is the Lamb who was slain, to receive power and wealth and wisdom and might and honor and glory and blessing!’” This is the celebration from which He will return to take us to the final banquet, the wedding feast that He will prepare for His Bride, the Church. Of this feast to come the Lord’s Supper is a foretaste, so that all who worthily eat and drink of the Lord’s body and blood in this feast can look forward to eating and drinking with Him face to face in His kingdom of glory.
In the meantime, through the Word and the Sacraments the Lord creates in us a longing for this day to come. We wait for it in the sure hope that it’s coming, no matter how far in the future it may be. St. Peter writes, “The Lord is not slow to fulfill His promise as some count slowness, but is patient toward you, not wishing that any should perish, but that all should reach repentance. But the day of the Lord will come like a thief, and then the heavens will pass away with a roar, and the heavenly bodies will be burned up and dissolved, and the earth and the works that are done on it will be exposed.” He learned this from his Lord, who likens His coming to that of a thief in the night, and says, “But know this, that if the master of the house had known at what hour the thief was coming, he would not have left his house to be broken into. You also must be ready, for the Son of Man is coming at an hour you do not expect.”
For those who are ready when He returns, the Lord speaks a double blessing, saying twice, “Blessed are those servants whom the master finds awake when He comes.” For those who have been faithfully busy about the vocations God has given them, for those who have kept their lamps of faith burning by continuing to receive the oil that flows from God’s Word and Sacraments, and for those who have waited and longed for His coming, Jesus promises His blessing. Not only that, but the big surprise is that when He comes, He, their Master, will then dress Himself to serve them. He will have them recline at His table and He will serve them. What exactly this will look like is not altogether clear. John, however, gives a description of this banquet in the book of Revelation when he hears a great multitude in heaven crying out, “Hallelujah! For the Lord our God the Almighty reigns. Let us rejoice and exult and give Him the glory, for the marriage of the Lamb has come, and His Bride has made herself ready; it was granted her to clothe herself with fine linen, bright and pure.”
Now, if you’re like me, right about now you might be wondering if you’ll qualify for this blessing. I know, for example, that I haven’t been as ready as I should be for the Lord’s return. Many times I’m lazy and not as faithful at my vocations as I should be. My lamp is often in danger of going out, as I’m not always as connected to the Word and Sacraments as I should be. And I am not as vigilant as I should be about looking for and anticipating the Lord’s coming. I’ve failed at all these commands of our Lord. Have I disqualified myself from His blessing and banquet?
When fears like these arise in your heart, it’s time to stop looking forwards towards the Lord’s second coming for the moment and look back instead at His first coming, because it was at that coming that He took your failures, sins, and weaknesses upon Himself on the cross and atoned for them with His blood. Then He came to you at your Baptism and applied that blood to you, cleansing you of all sin. Today He comes to you with His words of forgiveness and invites you to eat of His body and blood at His Table here at the altar. Jesus has taken care of all your sins, including your failure to be as ready as you should be for His coming. For His sake, you live under God’s blessing right now and have no need to fear His coming. Once you receive this assurance and the peace that comes with it, you can then look forward to the Lord’s coming with joy and hope, knowing that “He who began a good work in you will bring it to completion at the day of Jesus Christ.” Though Jesus commands these things of you, you can do none of them save by the power of the Holy Spirit whom you have been given at your Baptism. By His doing you can and will be ready for the Lord’s return when He comes to take you home.
As we enter the new year, then, we enter with the mind that this may be the last for us. The Lord could come for us at any time. Yet, even if He waits another thousand years, He will keep us safe in His hand, ready for that day, no matter what comes our way in the meantime. “Now may the God of peace Himself sanctify you completely, and may your whole spirit and soul and body be kept blameless at the coming of our Lord Jesus Christ. He who calls you is faithful; He will surely do it.” God’s blessings on you today and throughout the new year! Amen.