“VIRGIN BIRTH”
Saint Matthew 25. 1-13
The Last Sunday in the Church Year: 22 November Anno Domini 2009
Fr Watson S.S.P. - pastor
It takes no cooperation or choice to be a virgin. One is born a virgin. It takes no decision to be created sexually chaste, one simply is. That is how one starts. It isn't that virginity is preferable to faithful marriages, indeed one hopes that the former will many times lead to the latter. The longest lasting marriages are between those spouses who were both virgins upon their wedding day.
Though sinners cooperating in sin can become incredibly dirty and covered with filth, one can also become black and smelly all by oneself. One can take the Temple that one is born with and profane it, trash it, and ruin it.
Only God can make a tree wrote Emily Dickinson. She was right. Only the Lord can make a person. Only the Trinity made perfect people: Adam and Eve. Only the Lord can re-make a person. Only a Savior can save a person drowning to death. Only a life-giver can give back the breath of life.
The Lord Messiah is the King of Kings. He is a different kind of monarch. Jesus is no pompous, grandiloquent, and martial popinjay King. Jesus is a donkey king; a humble teaching rabbi king; a janitor, a condemned criminal, a foot-washing servant king. But He is also a King who delights in His brothers and sisters, His co-heirs, rather than a selfish, worrying, sibling killing king like many of the royal blood in both the Old Testament and much of Western History.
The Lord is the Word Made Flesh, and thus His words, teachings, sayings, parables, are connective extensions-real realities of Him-part and parcel of Him. Words and Word are One. The same is true of the King and His Kingdom. Christ and His Christians are One. The Lord and His Lamb are One. The Heavenly One and His Heaven(s) are One.
In Jesus' simile, spoken first by Him 2 millennia ago and later preached, taught, and finally recorded by Saint Matthew, "likens" Jesus, His Kingdom of Heaven to ten virgins. This is a poetic comparison. Much like a parable, one must be careful not to see inflexible comparisons and connections which may not be there. Jesus uses the poetic imagery to make a truthful point. The point is all that matters.
John 3.16 gospels the central point of grace, that God, that Jesus, loves the entire world; all of humanity. The Savior came to save all sinners. The Lamb was slain for all sinners. The ten virgins represent, in this capacity, all those Whom the Lord wishes to have rescued. The fact that there are ten virgins is fitting since 10 is the number of the Law. The Law kills and condemns. No man can keep the Law. Having the stone tablets, given at Sinai, will usher no man into the Masters House when the last day comes.
The fear of the Lord is the beginning of wisdom. The fear of the Lord is to love the Christ of God and to receive with faith His grace and mercy, His love and forgiveness, His cleansing and feeding. The fear of Christ is not craven, cowering, stomach wrenching, or heart-palpitating. The proper fear of the He Who Is the Way, the Truth and the Life, is simple, bear-hugging, reliance; it is Trusting Jesus as the Good God/Man no matter what the 5-senses of sinful man may be "saying" no matter what the un-reliable "emotions" of sinful man may be "feeling." Fearing God, is to be in Christ's presence letting Him serve and strengthen you. You are wise only when you have Wisdom, Christ, placed into you.
Though the King came for all the "virgins," only those brides-in-waiting who have oil in their lamps will enter the nuptial hall. Though the Lamb "slain from the before the creation" was to shed His precious Blood for ALL, John's magnificent Evangel, the Third Chapter concludes: "That whosoever BELIEVETH IN HIM, shall have everlasting life." [Jn. 3.16b]
There is no need to go into archeological pottery making or artificial light-making in the first century to plumb the depths of Christ's story here. If you have Christ, that is, if you have faith in Jesus' person and work "for you" then you are the five virgins taken to be His Bride for eternity. If you don't have Jesus, the true "oil" of Peace & Rest, then you have chosen to remain with yourself as your own light, your own way, your own will. The ones cast out into the outer darkness have not been cast out, kicked aside, or pre-damned by an arbitrary and thuggish "bean-counting" God/accountant. The ones who will be in hell have chosen hell; have decided it would be better to be "their own man" than to be the Lord's Bride by free gift…not of themselves.
Your faith, the Grace bestowed upon you, saves you, calls you, gathers you, cleans you, nourishes you, and seals you to eternity. Your oil of the Gospel, your Light of Christ in you by faith in His Words and by Faith in the Word, is yours and cannot be given, sold, or parlayed out to another. Only the Lord gives out oil. Only the Blessed Trinity works faith in men's lamps, that is, in their hearts, minds and souls, through the Word. The Holy Ghost fills up vessels made by God, with the "oil" of Jesus Blood, Sweat, Water, and Life. It is that "oil," that Jesus Who is your lamp & light & life.
Weep for those virgins who because of hard hearts, blackened hearts, pour out the "oil" of the Words, of the Word, of Jesus, and choose to make their own way in the world of sorrow. They receive what they have desired. Weep for them. But for yourselves: "Watch therefore, for you know neither the day nor the hour in which the Son of Man is coming." Wake, awake, for night is falling…the watchman on the heights is calling.
Receive the "oil" He so abundantly showers, pours, sprinkles, geysers upon you.
You are + forgiven all your sins. You are + baptized. You are His.
In the Name of The Father + and of The Son and of The Holy Ghost