Have you ever missed out on something that you were really looking forward to happening? I think back to when we were coming out of the various Covid lockdowns and where you were allowed to meet up with friends and family from all over the country, provided everybody was in a perfect state of health, and I can think of more than one occasion when we had something planned to meet up with various branches of the extended family, and then at the last minute someone had some symptoms or a test and we were not able to go to whatever it was that the rest of the family would be gathering at.
But what if it wasn't just one event in your life, one experience that you missed? What if it was the best day of your life, the thing that you were looking forward to more than anything else, and you were not able to be there for that?
This parable that Jesus told is an extremely unsettling one to read. We read of five of the ten young women shut out from the wedding feast. We feel acutely their desperation as they plead to be let in, and yet the answer is a no. And yet something deep down in us cannot completely dismiss the nagging doubt this might have something to do with us, and the result is extremely unsettling.
Jesus warns his disciples, and he's warning us. But as we listen to this parable, which is a parable of warning, we need to make sure that we are actually listening to what Jesus says and not making stuff up.
Stick to what Jesus says
So, there is a lot that we do not know about the world in which this story is set. For example, we are very ignorant actually, in spite of quite a lot of research, about first-century wedding customs in the Middle East. There is, in fact, if you read the literature, a huge amount of guesswork, but very little is known. So rather than me filling in the gaps and speculating, let's just say what we know from this story, which is that for whatever reason there was a torch-lit procession that went to the party, which was at the groom's house. That's all we need to know for the purposes of this story.
We don't know who the ten virgins were or, indeed, why they're there — we're just not told. We do know that the fact that they were virgins is not of any importance to the story. Some people prefer to translate them as bridesmaids — maybe that's guessing too, isn't it? So let's just stick to the fact that there were ten young women invited to the party. That'll do.
Why were there ten? Let me tell you why I think there were ten. Jesus was a very engaging teacher, and you could imagine him in the story, couldn't you? Ten young women invited to a wedding. Five were wise, five were foolish. The wise one — you can see it, you — that's why I think there were ten. But I need to hold my notes, so that'll do for that.
The word for lamps means a flaming torch. Now again, we don't know what the oil signifies. Lots of people, again, they love to guess — oh, you have to have the Holy Spirit, that's the oil. You have to have some good, kind deeds in your life, you have to be a prayerful person, have the oil in your spiritual life. Well, you can sing Hosanna in your own time — I'm not going to sing the song — but we do not know what these lamps were.
All we know is this — but it's pretty important — you had to have one, and it had to be lit if you were to join the procession and go to the party.
The biggest clue to what's going on in this story actually comes from the very opening phrase: At that time, the kingdom of heaven will be like... At what time, Jesus?
Well, the context is Matthew chapter 24, which came before and which we looked at over the past two Sundays. And at the beginning of Matthew 24, Jesus's disciples asked him, "When will the temple in Jerusalem be destroyed? And tell us about the end of the age, when you return to wrap everything up." And Jesus answered one and then the other.
In the beginning of chapter 24, he talked about the fall of the temple in Jerusalem. And then last week we looked at the end of chapter 24, when he talks about his return. And so he says, at that time — this story is about what happens when Jesus comes back.
And here are three things that Jesus tells us about his return.
1. His return is permanent
His return is permanent.
It is no accident that Jesus compares what will happen at his return to a wedding banquet. The New Testament language of the church as the bride of Christ finds its roots in the Old Testament — for example, you might want to read Ezekiel chapter 16. Jesus himself taught of himself as the bridegroom — Matthew chapter 9, John chapter 3. And then there's Revelation 19:9, in which the invitation comes out: Blessed are those who are invited to what? The wedding supper of the Lamb.
The return of Jesus will be like — no, will be — a royal wedding. Now, if you think back in this country to the last occasion when we had a royal wedding in Westminster Abbey — we get invited to watch it on TV and to prepare your own sandwiches afterwards to celebrate. But this is a royal wedding at which we get to be invited to be present. It will be a lavish occasion, it will be a joyful occasion, it will be the best party ever — and it will never end.
This is the event — not just the event of your life, not just the event of the century. This is the event not to miss out.
And yet five out of ten did miss out. And no amount of pleading could get them back in. Just look at the way the story ends. Verse 10:
"The door was shut. Later the others also came. 'Lord, Lord, open the door for us!' 'Truly I tell you, I don't know you.' "
Now, when you read the parables of Jesus, one little trick to study them and understand them is to listen for the little details that don't quite ring right — that the way that real life works is not quite what's going on in the story.
Hang on a minute, that wouldn't happen, right?
Would this really happen?
Middle Eastern culture — for all that we don't know about first-century Middle Eastern culture — it was built, as it still is today, on hospitality. It was a hugely hospitable culture. Anyone was welcome into your home at any point, with no notice, for any reason. That was the culture. So in that society, would you really say, "Sorry, you've missed the beginning, you can't come in"?
This is one of those little details in the story that's meant to make you go, "What? That would never happen!"
Just imagine if we did it here. Just imagine if the service today started bang on 10:30, and you arrived at 10:30 and 30 seconds only to find the welcome team have been promoted to bouncers and their job is to tell you that if you come next week, but come 30 seconds earlier, you can come in — but for this week, you've missed the start of the service, so head that way.
I mean, just — we just wouldn't do it.
Or you go round to a friend's for lunch, and you're polite so you've taken a pudding or a salad. They said to come at 12; it's 3 minutes past, you're on the doorstep, and they say, "I'm really sorry you're late, we've started eating our food, and I'm afraid you've missed it."
You just wouldn't do it. And it just wouldn't happen at a wedding either. And yet here it does.
However — there are times. There are times when there are events for which the door is closed. And if you're late, you are too late.
For example, if you're catching an international flight and they have closed the departure gate — it does not matter how much you smile, it doesn't matter how much you say that there are people looking forward to meeting you at the airport the other end — they will not let you on that flight. You've missed it.
Or we got talking with some of the Impact Youth about the trains in Japan, where they run the timetable and they put the timetable not just with hours and minutes, but seconds — the train will leave at 10:04 and 33 seconds. Here, they just tell you, "Train doors will be closed 1 minute before departure," and you can guess when that will be. But if they have shut the train doors, it is too late.
I preferred the old days. When I was a teenager, I was travelling on the train once and I fell asleep, and I woke up and realised that the train was beginning to pull out of the station at which I wanted to get off. It was Tiverton Parkway in Devon — I wanted to get off. So I took my suitcase, walked to the door — as the train was slowly pulling out of the thing — opened the door, chucked my suitcase onto the platform, jumped out, the guard blew the whistle, and the train stopped. But when they realised that all was safe and well, off they went again. You can't do that these days. If you've missed your stop, you've missed your stop.
The wedding supper of the Lamb is the one event not to miss. And yet five out of ten do — because the door is shut.
Now let me tell you this. The door is open today. If you follow the Lord Jesus, there is a place at that wedding banquet for you. The door is probably going to be open tomorrow as well — but I can't promise you that.
But there is a day when Jesus will return. And on the day when Jesus returns — or on the day that you die, which is when you fast-forward in your own experience to the return of Jesus — the door is shut. And if you are not ready, you are shut out of the party of eternity, and no amount of pleading will get you in.
"I went to Trinity Church, Scarborough — you know, surely I can come in? I was planning on becoming a Christian tomorrow — is it too late to bring it forwards by a day?"
Jesus's return is permanent.
2. Readiness for his return is personal
Readiness is personal.
Look at the other surprise in the parable. There's a second detail here that just doesn't quite ring true to reality.
Verse 7: "All the virgins woke up and trimmed their lamps. The foolish ones said to the wise, 'Give us some of your oil, our lamps are going out.' 'No,' they replied, 'there may not be enough for both us and you. Go to the shop and get some for yourselves.' "
Now, the wise — the five wise ones — they had plenty of spare oil. There is no hint in the story that it's a good job the bridegroom came then rather than 5 minutes later, because theirs were beginning to splutter a little and it was a close call for them. No — they come well prepared.
And if the bridegroom was about to come, they would have had enough spare to lend the others some for a few minutes. And surely they — surely they would have done. Surely, if they were there and they'd become a group of friends, ten of them in it together — they would help each other out. Of course they would.
But not in this story. Because if you're ready, it is because you are ready in your own right. You do not get in on somebody else's ticket.
Some of you here know a little too much about the world of visas. But if you want to go on holiday to a particular country, well, no matter what country you're from, there are certain countries that require a visa to let you in. And if you don't have a visa—a passport with the right stamp—you will not be admitted to the country that you're trying to travel to.
If you're travelling in a group and the rest of your group all have passports with visas, that will not help you. If you don't have one, you can't say, "My friends here all have a visa and I'm travelling with them." They'll say, "Well, they can come in and you can go home."
Or when you're on the train and the ticket inspector comes around—it's one of those strange moments for being British. I think—anybody else had this?—where you have in your possession a perfectly valid ticket for the journey that you're on, but somehow the call for, "Tickets, please," brings you out into a cold sweat, as you somehow assume that you're going to be rumbled for holding what is a perfectly valid ticket. And until they've checked it and confirmed that it's okay, you can't actually relax again. Just one of those weird things that we Brits do.
Anyway, back to the point, there are group tickets on the railway. You can buy a ticket for a group of four, you say, "We four are covered"—there are no group tickets to Heaven. You can't say, "I'm on his ticket." He’d say “I've seen his ticket, where's yours?
If you're ready to go to the banquet, it will be because you are ready. And lines like this will not help you: "My wife's a Christian, she'll vouch for me." "Well, my parents were Christians."
What does it mean, though, to be ready in your own right? So I said earlier we're not going to guess what the oil stands for, but we do know what it looks like to be ready, because we're told, aren't we?
Verse 11: "The others came. 'Lord, Lord,' they said, 'open the door for us!' But he replied, 'Truly I tell you, I don't know you.'" To be ready is to know Jesus—or, more exactly, for him to know you.
These days it feels like we know celebrities because they put their life on show in public. There are photos everywhere—what they had for breakfast on Instagram. You don't really know them, even if it feels like you know them. And more to the point, they don't know us.
About 18 months ago, the Prince and Princess of Wales—William and Katherine (Kate to her friends and to the tabloid newspapers)—came to the street. They had a look around this very building. Some people in this room met them and spoke to them. Now, they're lovely people, so talking to them would not be difficult. They know how to make conversation with strangers and build links quickly. But it wouldn't have been for anybody here, I don't think, a moment of instant recognition. If they said hello, it wouldn't be, "James, how—so how's it going? How's that work? How's the new house coming along? Where did you go on holiday last year—was it good?" Not that kind of instant recognition from them, where they instantly know who you are and can't wait to pick up where they left off.
See, how do you get to be ready for the banquet at the return of Jesus? The question is this: do you know him? Does he know you?
Not that thing where, like with a modern-day celebrity, you have that kind of instant moment of recognition: "I know who that is. Beard, sandals, yeah, you're the one who fed 5,000 people—I know you." Not knowing stuff about him—actually knowing him as a person.
When you greet him on that day, will it be, "James! How are you? I have so looked forward to this day when I can shake your hand"? Or, when you greet him on that day, will it be to hear those most terrifying words ever in the Bible: "I'm sorry, I don't believe we've met."
Verse 12: "He replied, 'Truly I tell you, I don't know you.'"
Readiness is personal.
3. The delay is the problem
And third: the delay is the problem. If he had come straight away, all ten would have gone in. But the crisis is set up in verse 5: "The bridegroom was a long time in coming." We've had this before—so chapter 24, verse 48: "Suppose that servant is wicked and says to himself, 'My master is staying away a long time.'" Come back next week for the next parable, but in Matthew 25:19: "After a long time the master of those servants returned."
Some people, as they read the New Testament, get to bits that talk about Jesus coming and there being a delay, and they imagine some crisis in the first-century church, when Christians have begun dying and they're panicking because Jesus hadn't come back yet, and they all thought he should have come back by now. No—Jesus himself said he was going to be some time, and people would be surprised how long it takes.
The delay is the problem, though, because it's not enough to start following Jesus—we need to be still following him at the end. It won't do, when Jesus returns, to say to him, "You should have seen me in my student days—I went to CU and church back then. I went to church as a kid—ask my Explorers, ask our children's minister for the register—I've been there every week. We were so keen when we were just married, stuck into the life of the church."
But then the groom was a long time in coming, and they all became drowsy and fell asleep.
Now, the problem was not that they fell asleep. They're never told off for having dozed off. Indeed, all ten of them did that. No, their folly was not taking any spare oil. Some writers even like to suggest that perhaps Matthew got his story a bit wrong, and Jesus originally told a parable in which five fell asleep and five stayed awake. People write all kinds of nonsense in books, I tell you. No—here's the story: all ten fell asleep, but only five had the spare oil. Only five had factored in that there could be a delay.
Now, this is really important, though—that it's not about actually staying awake, but having enough oil that you can afford to doze off without worrying about it. Because it means that when Jesus says, "Keep watch," he's not saying, "Put the whole of your life on pause." You're not to stop doing everything—right, stop work, stop eating, stop sleeping—literally just put everything on pause and just look look look in case it happens, like a dog staring out of its window for its owner to return.
If you have a dog, you do know, don't you, that the entire day you're out at work, your dog does nothing other than look out the window and wait for you. That's what they like to tell you. What actually happens is, the minute you're gone, all havoc breaks loose, and then they're miraculously loyally back at the window when you actually come home.
We do not need to be like that dog—staring, watching, suspending normal life. But we do have to be always ready. And next week we will hear a little more on what it looks like to be always ready whilst going about normal life, because the next parable will unfold that for us.
Now, let's just sharpen a little what Jesus is saying. The warning that's here is really very specific. So Jesus is not asking you, "Are you ready to meet him today?" Now, that is a really good question, and as we've seen, you need to make sure the answer to that is yes. But that's actually not Jesus's question here.
He's not saying, "If once in the past you were ready, are you still ready today?" That's another really good question—but it's not the question for here. He's saying this: If you're ready today, will you still be ready when he comes back?
As you sign up to follow Jesus today, or as today as we gather for worship you renew your personal commitment to him for another week—do you have on board the fact that he could be some time? That you need to be in this for the long haul?
When we start the race to follow the Lord Jesus, or when we start the next lap of the race, it is a marathon, not a sprint. What we need to do is get to the finish line, not just start the lap.
When I was talking to the youth—I said, you know, in this room before the service, we pastors gather with the young people and introduce them to what we're going to be looking at in the sermon—I said, "You're aged between 11 and 17. There are lots of adults in Scarborough today who, when they were between 11 and 17, were regular at church every Sunday—and yet now are nowhere.
"So I'm thrilled you're here. But the question for you is not, 'Are you here today?' The question for you guys," I said, "is: Are you here today—and what you have on board is, if Jesus doesn't come back until I'm 84, am I still... am I putting things into place today, baking in habits and decisions that mean that when I'm 84 I will still be ready for him, as I am today?" That's the point, isn't it?
Now, there are many things in life where you would be more ready if there was extra time. A-levels and GCSEs start soon now. How many youngsters have entered their GCSE or A-level season thinking, "What would be lovely is if I had a couple more weeks to get ready"? If they didn't actually come quite this week?
Or you've got some guests arriving, the food's not quite ready, and if they could be half an hour late, that would be so convenient.
Or you're a schoolteacher, and government inspectors have told you on Friday at 5:00 that they'll be in Monday at 8:00 to inspect your school—and one weekend doesn't feel quite enough to get everything ready for the inspectors to come.
With Jesus, it's the reverse. More time does not give you space to be more ready. Because remember—they were not shut out of the party because they were late. They got shut out of the party because Jesus was late. They didn't need longer to get ready—they weren't ready now. That's the easy bit. All you have to do to be ready now is to say yes to Jesus.
Much harder to be still ready in the future. The delay is the problem.
Well, the punchline of the story comes in the final verse—verse 13—where Jesus says:
"Therefore keep watch, because you do not know the day or the hour."
Conclusion
We know the date of many things. We know the date of the opening ceremony of the Paris Olympics. We know the date of Christmas Day. We know the date of your next birthday.
We do not know the date of the return of Jesus. You cannot put it in your Google Calendar and set a reminder. We do not know. But he will come. And when he comes, this will be the event not to miss. Remember—not just the party of your life, not just the party of the century, the party of eternity. And one that never ends.
But many will miss it—because the door will be shut.
And to be ready, you need to know Jesus. And he needs to know you.
Now, this date could be soon. It could be today. We might not finish singing the final song of the service before he returns. Could be. So—you need to know him today. Do not delay—because you could miss out if you delay.
But he could be a long time. And you need to know him then. Because those who go in will be those who know him. And the question is—will that be you?