In the name of the Father and of the Son and of the Holy Spirit. Amen.
People loved by God, did you notice the tension between the Gospel reading and the hymn we just sang by Pastor Philip Nicolai, and on which Bach wrote that marvelous cantata with the joyous duet we also just heard (and also the prelude)? You see, there’s an edge to the Gospel reading. A warning implicit in it. You hear it and begin to wonder: am I like the wise or the foolish virgins? Do I have oil for my lamp? What is the oil? Will I be ready when the Bridegroom shows up? But then you sang a hymn which simply assumed that you are NOT among the foolish, but the wise. It tells you to get ready to meet your Bridegroom with the joy and confidence. He will welcome you and usher you right into the wedding feast that has no end. “We enter all the wedding hall to eat the Supper at thy call” and “Therefore will we eternally sing hymns of praise and joy to thee.”
I’d like to ponder that tension with you by way of a quote that I encountered on X (that’s the old Twitter). I’ve come to know and treasure posts my friend Sarah makes. She lives out on the east coast. She wasn’t raised Lutheran, but came to our Church as an adult. She wrote this a while back: “The thing I love so much about being Lutheran is that I literally just live my life, trying to love my neighbor as much as possible, and I don’t ever even contemplate my salvation. Like it’s not even a question whether I will go to Heaven. Not because I’m an antinomian- but because I know losing Heaven would only happen if I intentionally chose to lose heaven. There is no accidental way I will end up losing my salvation, and that’s pretty nice.”
I smiled a big one when I read her words. They provoked a lot of people online who just didn’t like her confidence and tried to suggest that it was sinful presumption. But she wasn’t buying that. She knew it wasn’t presumption at all to simply trust the promises of salvation God makes in His Word: “He who began a good work in you will bring it to completion on the day of our Lord Jesus Christ.” Philippians 1. Or again, as St. Paul so recklessly assured the Thessalonians in today’s epistle: “God has not destined us for wrath, but to obtain salvation through our Lord Jesus Christ.” 1 Thes. 5:9
So there’s the key to the whole puzzle: “through our Lord Jesus Christ.” It was in confidence in Jesus and His sacrifice upon Golgotha and the perfect righteousness He delivers in Baptism, that Pastor Nicolai wrote his two great hymns “Wake, Awake” and “O Morning Star.” He wanted to sing the assurance of God’s salvation right down into the hearts of his members. And he wanted them to sing that joy into each other in the face of the most horrific death and sorrow. They didn’t have to fear if they were wise or foolish, provided only, as Sarah said, they don’t “intentionally chose to lose heaven.” Provided only you place yourself intentionally where the oil flows, God takes care of keeping you in repentance and faith and bringing you home to the Feast that never ends.
So notice that the two groups of virgins were alike in every point (including falling asleep) except for carrying the extra oil. If you ask what the oil means in Jesus’ parable, an old Lutheran study bible answers simply: “the oil is the gift of the Holy Spirit, who through Word and Sacrament kindles faith, love, and all good, preparing the heart for joyful service.” (Weimarische Bibel-Werk). I love that. You see, being a Lutheran Christian is as simple and joyous as this: YOU plant yourself where the oil flows. You live at the receiving end of the Word and the Sacraments, and then you can trust that God will do everything to finish the good work He’s begun in you.
He uses the preaching of His Law to keep you humble, so that you know you have zero righteousness that avails before Him. As Isaiah said so graphically, your righteousnesses are like a filthy menstrual rag. Your righteousness, not your sin. The best you can do, not the worst. The Law will never let you believe that you can stand before God on the basis of your good actions. It crushes that pride in you all the time. As James said: “For the person who keeps all of the laws except one is as guilty as a person who has broken all of God’s laws.” James 2:10 NLT The Law humbles us all by showing that we all stand condemned. BUT God also uses the preaching of His Gospel to fill you with joy! For it hands you JESUS as the One who has perfectly fulfilled every demand of God’s holy Law for you and who has fully paid for all of your sin upon His cross, and who gives you in His Sacraments His own righteousness. The preaching of Law and Gospel and the gifts of Baptism, Absolution, the Eucharist: THESE are the means by which the Holy Spirit is continually poured out upon you, and through them He will do His work. He will make you ready for that great Day of the Savior’s appearing by keeping you in saving faith. You just live where the oil flows, where the Holy Spirit is given, and He’ll take care of the rest.
And that means that you can sing “My beloved is mine and I am His, and heaven is where you are certainly headed.” The great joy of the wedding feast is that you have a Bridegroom who is exceedingly rich. He became one with us and died in order to bear our poverty and our wretchedness and sin, He now LIVES that you might become one with Him and share in all the riches and treasures of His grace. That’s what He reaches you today at His banqueting table, His Holy Altar.
So do not be afraid, people loved by God! Keep on hearing Jesus’ Word and receiving all that He wants to give you in His means of grace, and you will have oil enough and to spare. But DO fear wandering from His Word and His Sacraments, because not one of us can sustain faith on our own. Faith can only be received, not possessed, and the means of receiving that faith is simply the faithful use of the means of grace.
Yes, my friend Sarah nailed this one. The joy of being a Lutheran Christian is that you don’t need to worry about going to heaven. He’s covered that fully and completely. You just need to make sure you always give a listen to His Words both of Law and Gospel, and that you joyfully receive all that He gives you. And then it’s His job to get you home. And He will.
In the name of the Father and of the Son and of the Holy Spirit. Amen.
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