And, as it says in the scriptures, that the end times are the great and terrible day of the Lord. How can something be both great and terrible? Simple, really, that great meaning large or immense, we mean it in the pejorative sense.
Simple enough, and everything we read about judgment day seems to suggest that it is darkness and not light, that it is bad news and will plague us with horrendous sights never before contemplated. The Bible tells us that judgment day is a time in which everyone is resurrected, and each one must give an account of his deeds. The righteous will move towards heaven, and the unrighteous into eternal damnation and fire.
Working that part out helps the Old Testament reading to make sense, really. For in the Old Testament reading, it tells us that the day of the Lord is as though a man was escaping from a Lion, and a bear met him. Or if he entered into a house, and a snake bit him. The colloquial expression for this is 'out of the frying pan, and into the fire,' and that's sort of what is promised on the last day. The last day, judgment day, in which everyone will escape the first death, where we will all be raised up on the last day, but then what happens to us? Some will avoid the first death, only to meet up with the second. Some will be alive until the coming of our Lord, and will escape temporal death, but not the judgment that comes along with that return.
Our view of judgment day is skewed, as these things often are. That is, we tend to think about judgment day as a time in which God will be there, and he will be accountable to us. We will get to ask him why it is that he felt it was appropriate for our dog to die when we were seven, which made us real sad. We feel as though it will be the right time for us to say to the Lord our God, the king of the universe 'how come I got split ends right before the big dance?' In many ways, we think about judgment day in the same fashion as that footprints poem, you know the one. And when I read that poem, I'm always struck by the audacity of the man in question to say to the living God, the fire and the whirlwind 'I'm gonna let you finish, but How come there was only one set of footprints when things got tough?'
That's not the judgment day that the scriptures describe. They describe a day in which God himself will judge us, not the other way around. And it's described not only as a great and terrible day, but as a sudden, immediate, terrifying time, in which you won't have time to repent, to get your life in order, to live properly. The day of the Lord, just like our own individual deaths, will just happen. Not necessarily any warning, so you have to be ready all the time.
And that brings us to the parable of the wise and foolish virgins. The sophomoric virgins, if you follow me. The ones who were wise prepared, they brought with them extra oil for their lamps, as they planned on joining the wedding procession to the feast site. The foolish ones did not. The foolish ones likely didn't know how long it was going to take for the wedding procession to get going, nor for the party to start, and besides, why should you bother getting your extra oil ready when you have other people, in the same boat, and they can prepare for you? What's the point, after all? So, the foolish virgins, when they heard that the bridegroom was coming, they got up, trimmed their lamps, and prepared to join in the procession. And they said to the wise virgins 'we have no oil for our lamps. Give us some of yours.' The reply from the wise virgins makes perfect sense, too 'if we give you our oil, there won't be enough for anyone. You should go to the dealers and buy some.' Yes, yes they should. But they should have done so much earlier. By the time they go and get oil, and then come back, the door to the festival is shut, and as they knock, a voice can be heard from the inside 'I do not know you.'
Does that end bother you? It should, and it tends to bother most people. Most folks don't look at what happened to the foolish virgins and say 'good end. Git rekt.' Most folks, when the foolish virgins get shut out, when they are not welcome, when they are barred entry into the feast, they say that this is a horribly unfair scenario. That the groom should just open the door, and let them in as they pound desperately to be admitted.
Okay, but if you think that's a good idea, then I would ask you a simple question, which is to ask you who would you invite to your wedding? Would you invite friends, family, that sort of thing? Would you invite people who had a large part in making you into who you were, and who your intended spouse had become? Or would you just invite total strangers, start up the open bar, and let them have at it? Almost nobody I have ever met has ever welcomed gatecrashers into their wedding reception. Almost nobody I have ever met has been at their own wedding reception, have seen uninvited strangers show up, and have said 'gosh, the more the merrier.' An invitation to a wedding doesn't tend to go to the best and brightest, it doesn't ususally go to the captains of industry and socialites. Wedding invites tend to go to the people known and loved by the bride and groom, and their families.
If you find that moment where the virgins are pounding on the door, begging to be let in to be offensive, it it bothers you that the voice from the inside comes out and says 'I do not know you,' then I welcome you to think about the work of Christ to get to know people before the wedding feast begins. For the book of Revelation, mandatory reading as we consider the end times, there's a passage that we shouldn't skip, especially if we're not overly in love with the idea that there might be unanswered knocking at doors. There is a passage where Jesus talks of us, and says to us 'Behold, I stand at the door and knock. If anyone hears my voice and opens the door, I will come in, and we will eat together as friends. Those who are victorious will sit with me on my throne, just as I was victorious and sat with my father on his throne.' That all seems fine, to be sure. It seems fine, because this is the work of the bridegroom to meet the guests before the wedding. You and I both know that admission to a wedding isn't based on being the best and the brightest, but based on being the people with whom you break bread, and eat with. It's based on who you know, who you love, and being invited to share with the bride and groom in their happy occasion. And this, well, it's a matter of some interest for us, because Jesus is standing at the door of each and every human heart, and knocking. And the response that he tends to get seems to be the same as the response that he gives in the Gospel reading.
I do not know you.
That's how people respond when Christ seeks to come and visit with them, to eat with them and drink with them, to grow in love and service and knowledge with them. They respond by saying to him that they do not know him, that they refuse to open the door to him, refuse to let him in and grant him entrance. At the point where we are discussing life and salvation, where we are talking about grace and sin, life and death, salvation and damnation, we look at the words of the groom, and are upset by them. As the hands of the foolish virgins pound ever more insistently on the door, we feel as though the groom should just let them in, whether he knows them or not. But if that is the case, then surely each and every single one of us ought to be unlocking the door to Christ as he knocks on the doors to our hearts.
The number one thing to know, to remember about how this whole salvation and damnation thing works is that the door, though locked between us and him, is only locked on our side. Complaining about how Christ refuses to come to us, about how he refuses to allow us into paradise, is a lot like saying that you have been locked inside your house, or inside your car. Surely, you can understand that here, as Christ desperately wants to know you and wants you to know him, the door is locked, it is barred, but from your side. If you want to know Christ, to be forgiven, to be given new life and invited into the wedding feast, then it would be best for you to unlock the door, and to not shut out the bridegroom, who wants to know you, that you may be welcome at his wedding feast as an honored guest, and not pounding at the door as a gatecrashing stranger, just there to enrich yourself.
But that could happen at any time, you know. And as the church year draws to a close, our focus stays sharply on the idea that none of us know the day nor the hour. So best to welcome him past your threshold now, that you may know him before the procession starts. You had better be prepared at all times, for you won't get a warning when he returns in glory. Instead, you will have to see and encounter the living God face to face. So be sober, be alert, and be ready for his coming.
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