Good Morning Friends,
On occasion I get a communication asking me to pray for someone who has been diagnosed with a serious disease. Maybe you too have had these requests and wondered what you are going to say. It is certainly best if the Spirit moves the heart in the choice of words. Still responding to a person who knows they are facing the certainty they or a loved one may die is not easy. You can say, I am sorry, or you can ask them to pray for you but that is not enough to bring joy back into their lives. It is awkward because it is painful and there is a problem with pain. There is a problem with fear too. Here we discover that the process of death and grieving is complex. Maybe Saint Teresa who honored the dying in the streets of Calcutta, as if they were Jesus, was right. “Not all of us can do great things. But we can do small things with great love.” We can be attentive to the situation and the lives of the people involved. We need to stay awake to the situation. When there was a storm on the Sea of Galilee, the disciples wanted Jesus to stay awake, because they feared death, so He helped them. But when Jesus prayed in Gethsemane, facing his own death, the Apostles found it impossible to stay awake. Here Jesus realized that no one could do it for him. So too in our life, there comes a time when it is too late for anybody to really help us. There comes a time when no one else can help us with our own spiritual development but God. Today’s parable from Matthew is about this topic but has always perplexed me. On one level it seems designed to encourage us to be prepared and ready but to also not make a foolish mistake. That is ok but there is an uneasy and disturbing challenge and a warning about how to live life embedded in it. We need to be ready now. We need to patiently wait. We need to stay awake! Yet we need to live, and we need our sleep! We are forced to face the tension of opposites. We are to expect Jesus now but be prepared for him not to come for a very long time. We are to face morbidity in a way that defies logic yet balances reason with faith. So, friends for you, Are You Listening and Responding To The Message That Love Is Stronger Than Death?
Scripture: ‘Then the kingdom of heaven will be like this. Ten bridesmaids took their lamps and went to meet the bridegroom. Five of them were foolish, and five were wise. When the foolish took their lamps, they took no oil with them; but the wise took flasks of oil with their lamps. As the bridegroom was delayed, all of them became drowsy and slept. But at midnight there was a shout, “Look! Here is the bridegroom! Come out to meet him.” Then all those bridesmaids got up and trimmed their lamps. The foolish said to the wise, “Give us some of your oil, for our lamps are going out.”But the wise replied, “No! there will not be enough for you and for us; you had better go to the dealers and buy some for yourselves.” And while they went to buy it, the bridegroom came, and those who were ready went with him into the wedding banquet; and the door was shut. Later the other bridesmaids came also, saying, “Lord, lord, open to us.” But he replied, “Truly I tell you, I do not know you.” Keep awake therefore, for you know neither the day nor the hour.
Matthew 25:1-13 (NRSV)
From everyone to whom much has been given, much will be required; and from one to whom much has been entrusted, even more will be demanded.
Luke 12:48 (NRSV)
But we do not want you to be uninformed, brothers and sisters, about those who have died, so that you may not grieve as others do who have no hope. For since we believe that Jesus died and rose again, even so, through Jesus, God will bring with him those who have died. For this we declare to you by the word of the Lord, that we who are alive, who are left until the coming of the Lord, will by no means precede those who have died. For the Lord himself, with a cry of command, with the archangel’s call and with the sound of God’s trumpet, will descend from heaven, and the dead in Christ will rise first. Then we who are alive, who are left, will be caught up in the clouds together with them to meet the Lord in the air; and so we will be with the Lord forever. Therefore encourage one another with these words.
I Thessalonians 4:13-18 (NRSV)
Jesus said to her, “I am the resurrection and the life. Those who believe in me, even though they die, will live, and everyone who lives and believes in me will never die. Do you believe this?”
John 11.25-26 (NRSV)
For to me, living is Christ and dying is gain.
Philippians 1:21 (NRSV)
Therefore, just as sin came into the world through one man, and death came through sin, and so death spread to all because all have sinned—
Romans 5:12 (NRSV)
Then I saw a great white throne and the one who sat on it; the earth and the heaven fled from his presence, and no place was found for them. And I saw the dead, great and small, standing before the throne, and books were opened. Also another book was opened, the book of life. And the dead were judged according to their works, as recorded in the books. And the sea gave up the dead that were in it, Death and Hades gave up the dead that were in them, and all were judged according to what they had done. Then Death and Hades were thrown into the lake of fire. This is the second death, the lake of fire;
and anyone whose name was not found written in the book of life was thrown into the lake of fire.
Revelation 20:11-15 (NRSV)
What then are we to say? Should we continue in sin in order that grace may abound? By no means! How can we who died to sin go on living in it? Do you not know that all of us who have been baptized into Christ Jesus were baptized into his death? Therefore we have been buried with him by baptism into death, so that, just as Christ was raised from the dead by the glory of the Father, so we too might walk in newness of life. For if we have been united with him in a death like his, we will certainly be united with him in a resurrection like his. We know that our old self was crucified with him so that the body of sin might be destroyed, and we might no longer be enslaved to sin. For whoever has died is freed from sin.
Romans 6:1-14 (NRSV)
for everything that becomes visible is light. Therefore it says, “Sleeper, awake! Rise from the dead, and Christ will shine on you.”
Ephesians 5:14 (NRSV)
For just as the body without the spirit is dead, so faith without works is also dead.
James 2:26 (NRSV)
Therefore from one person, and this one as good as dead, descendants were born, “as many as the stars of heaven and as the innumerable grains of sand by the seashore.”
Hebrews 11:12 (NRSV)
Message: Today’s Gospel parable of the ten bridesmaids brings a strong ethical and theological message home that is meant to bother us. Honestly, I have never liked the parable. What is the matter with those bridesmaids for not sharing the oil for the lamps anyway! They fell asleep too. But perhaps it was not in their power to share the joy the oil symbolizes. This is something that has to come from God. Not so much our own efforts. Perhaps the Kingdom has a door that can and does close and it is pointless to speculate when. But perhaps something else is at play here. The foolish virgins in the Gospel reading looked, dressed and marched like bridesmaids. They were charming on the outside but perhaps dim and dull on the inside. But they are not the bride. So, if Jesus is the bridegroom, and the church is the bride what is the real message about the virgins. Certainly, there is more here than a sermon on being prepared. Even though that might be appropriate as we are in the middle of a pandemic with a new President elect and now in addition under a hurricane watch here in South Florida today. But all that aside, maybe it helps to realize, in making sense of the parable, that in Jewish culture one of the acts of entertainment at weddings was to have ten virgins perform a dance around the bride and groom. Without all ten we don’t have a gender counterbalance to the requirement that there be ten men to witness the wedding. Their story reminds us that we should wait patiently, wait expectantly and wait faithfully, but we should choose wisely too when it comes to living our lives, but for the sake of the wedding it would be nice to have all ten virgins dancing. So, there is more going on here than just a wedding. We have Jesus’ second coming and for me, and you can disagree with me if you like, but I have always thought Jesus’ second coming as instructive in dealing with our own little deaths for death should never bring us thoughts of panic, doom or discouragement but they should help to motivate us to stay awake and joyful in the reality that it is all about Jesus and God’s love. Sure, we cannot overlook our responsibility. But a relationship with God cannot be borrowed. So, stay alert as if the Lord will come tomorrow but prepare as if he will not come in your lifetime and there is Kingdom work to be done until we are called home. Likewise prepare for death in the same way. Friends, when it comes to the most important of tasks, of actively living in faithfulness to God, we cannot just call ourselves Christians, we need to deliver the goods. We need to be fruitful. We need to have the full armor of God. When it comes to Kingdom work, we need to be ready for both a wedding and a war. We need to be prepared and we need to let our light shine to the glory of God. We need to stay awake in the love and joy of God.
And So, maybe Jesus is just asking us not to die but if we do, do so with joy. Maybe falling asleep is a euphemism for death. The charge of Jesus is to not fall asleep. But I wonder what kind of death he is referring to. For as I am writing this morning, I am cognizant that the Bible mentions seven different deaths: There is the physical death noted in Philippians 1:21. There is the spiritual death in Romans 5:12. There is the second death, the continual dying you really want to avoid described in Revelation 20:11-15. There is the positional death when we identify with Christ in His death through our baptism in Romans 6:1-7. There is temporal or worldly death described in Ephesians 5:14. There is operational death, the inability to produce in James 2:26. And there is sexual death, the inability to procreate in Hebrews 11:12. There is a lot of death to choose from here but also a marriage that alters the rules. Friends, inside of each one of us there is the deep-seated feeling that…death isn’t right! Somehow, we intuitively know that death is not as natural as it seems even though it seems unavoidable. And the amazing thing here is that scripture teaches us that we were not created to die. Yet still in so many ways we do die. All because of sin. So, perhaps we were not made to live out a short life. We were meant to live life to its fullest with great joy. But when someone is dying, whatever kind of death it is, the thinking of it can overwhelm us with the emotion of fear. The solution is not a theology lesson, the solution is not thinking about the thinking of dying, but loving, for that brings Jesus… and a reality that castes out fear.
Pray we stay alive and well and yes awake in the love of Jesus. Pray we are never comfortable with the suffering of others. Pray we realize that staying awake means being in the grace and mercy of Jesus who was sent by the Father to love the whole world, not to exclude some and include others. Pray we wait patiently, expectantly and faithfully but especially joyfully. Pray we are spiritually prepared. Pray we are spiritually disciplined in our daily habits. Pray we discover the strength and blessings of Christian disciplines. Pray we have no delusions of adequacy. Pray we face our natural instincts. Pray Christ’s faith in us changes the way we live. Pray that we do not get caught up in world’s routines and forget that things are not always going to continue as they are. Pray it is not too late. Pray we realize that sin is deceitful. Pray we are wise and not foolish. Pray we keep our lamps lit with the light of Christ in our very souls. Pray our character is clothed in Christ. Pray we have the courage, concentration and vigilance to stay awake. Pray we are worthy of our calling. Pray we realize that we can neither loan nor borrow preparations for the coming of the Kingdom, but we can love. Pray we make a commitment for the long haul. Pray we realize that we cannot order others to resolve the problems created by our own inadequacies. Pray we realize that the only joy that is important when we face marriage, life and death is the joy and love of Jesus.
Blessings,
John Lawson
Daily Devotionals 