This is a story with many meanings.
Ten girls
get ready for a wedding reception,
all of them have
the wedding lamps which are a traditional part of the ceremony but in this case
five have enough oil for their lamps, and five don’t. At
The five
whose lamps are full of oil go into the wedding reception,
the five without
oil, unprepared, unready.....go off to find some, when they come back they
can’t get in.
There have been many different
interpretations of this parable. Just about every item in the parable has been
turned over, examined, and given a meaning over the past two thousand
years. Some have looked at the lamps and
wondered what they mean. Others have noted that the lamps used oil, and thought
that maybe the oil stands for
prayer. Others wondered about the five wise girls, and the five
foolish girls and who they might be.
But there is one way of
understanding this story which is absolutely straightforward. That it ends in
celebration. This is a story about a wedding after all !
And it ends with happy celebration, a
happy event, a culmination
So, one clear way of grasping
this parable is this:
is to
apply it to the Church. Like the girls in the parable, the Church is on a
journey, always on a journey, into the future - and up ahead at a
time we do not know, there is a happy celebration, a happy event.
The happiest thing of all is
to come in the future, when Jesus Christ returns.
Johann Sebastian Bach captures
this magnificently in his great chorale ‘Wachet auf .........’ the orchestra
lays down a steady theme and then the choir sings in separate parts chorus
after chorus, all laid down in deep layers of harmony and counterpoint........ till finally the whole choir, with the orchestra behind them
join in singing
wachet auf ! - they sing - wake up ! wake up !
The Church moving into the future - towards that
great chorus,
that
happy celebration, that happy event, when Jesus Christ returns.
Now that’s easy to say: the
Church is moving into the future - towards
that
happy celebration, that happy event, when Jesus Christ returns.
But - when we look at the
Church, when we look around us,
doesn’t
it look just exactly the opposite ?
When we look
around, what we see is the Church moving, yes.
But towards
a difficult future. If we are moving into the future, it’s sometimes
difficult to see what’s happening.
Walter Benjamin, the famous German thinker, once went to an exhibition by Paul
Klee, and thile there, he saw a painting entitled ‘The angel of history’
Walter Benjamin wrote later, describing the painting. In the centre of
the painting an angel stands, his arms raised, and in front of him there is
what appears to be a great pile of wreckage in front of him. The angel is
standing with his back to the future, so he can’t see what’s coming, what he
can see is that growing pile of wreckage in front of him. What is that great
pile of wreckage ? It is history piling up, day after
day, year after year - a great heap of confusing events which the angel watches
in fear.
If we turn to the Bible, however,
things don't just unfold from day to day, year to year in confusion, no ! The Bible declares that there is a steady line running
through history, a line running from the moment when the living God created the
world, to the moment when Jesus Christ will come again. As a Church we are
living on that line, and in that movement, in readiness, and deepening
expectation, like the wise girls in the parable.
Yet, when we look around, what
we see is that the Church seems to be moving towards a difficult future, days
of struggle perhaps, which will be quite the opposite of celebration. Why is this ?
Well, the early Church
knew why, the Church moves through days of struggle, perhaps long days, and
often faces a
difficult future.
It is because we are the
the
Church of Jesus Christ the lowly Servant
of the Lord.
He is the one, as Isaiah 53 declares: despised and rejected, a man of
sorrows and familiar with suffering. A man of sorrows, acquainted with grief.
The early Church, recognised that
the words concerning the mysterious and wonderful Servant in Isaiah 53 describe
Jesus exactly, this is precisely Jesus Himself. They describe Jesus exactly, His
lowliness, His humble life and His lowly cross. He who became
a human being and lived among us. Who was in the world, and though the
world was made through Him, the world in its blindness did not recognise Him.
He came to His own, that is
And we are united to Him. As the New Testament
proclaims.
we
are united to Jesus who, by the Holy Spirit, shares His life with us through
the Holy Spirit – so that we are, as Paul says, ‘in Him’.
And in the magnificent sixth chapter of Romans Paul tells us what that means. If we are united to Jesus Christ, if we are ‘in Him’, then we also share in His death, and His resurrection. Paul writes in Philippians that we also share His suffering.
The triumphant message of the New Testament is that Jesus
Christ, the Servant, the lowly One, who came among us
in lowliness has now been raised up by God in glory.
As Peter says in a very early sermon recorded in the Book
of Acts: 2.33 – this Jesus, whom you crucified, God has made….Lord
Alongside the difficulties surrounding the Church,
alongside the indifference of the
world,
alongside its struggles,
the early Church knew that
there is a greater reality,
which is this: that God has exalted
the lowly One, Jesus Christ, the lowly One, to the highest place and has given
Him the name that is above every name………
If we look around us now, you will see that the Church has
its own struggles, and difficulties, because we share with Jesus Christ in His
lowliness...............
but day by day, year by year
through our struggles in the Church
with every difficulty that we overcome, with every struggle that we get
through, with every great challenge we face and win through,
we are growing more and more
deeply in Him,
learning at every turn to depend more
and more on Him,
on the inexhaustible riches of
the Gospel,
on the inexhaustible riches of
His grace.
Yes, His glory is hidden now, but our longing is
towards the dawn,
through
all the failure, scattering, fall, and growing of the Church
we,
along with the whole Church are moving
into the future -
towards
that great and happy celebration, that wonderful event, when Jesus Christ
returns. And our comfort is this - that
it was in the darkest hour of the night that the shout went up that the
bridegroom had come............. the cry - He
is coming !
The light
shines in the darkness and the darkness has never mastered it.
AMEN