Songs of Songs 4 and 5 (and a little bit of 6)

Click below for the sermons I preached at Bethany Evangelical Church (Swinton), on Sunday 28th December.

Song of Songs 4.1-5.1 (32:14, 9.22MB)
Song of Songs 5.2-6.3 (31:40, 9.06MB)

Song of Songs 4.1-5.1: Sermon Outline

“You are altogether beautiful, my love;
there is no flaw in you.
Come with me.” – Song of Songs 4.7-8a

Introduction

It matters to us to know what people think of us
At the heart of this great book, we see what Christ thinks of us, his people, his church.

Packer on the Song of Songs: ‘A parable of the love of God and his people, in the form of an exotic, erotic, ecstatic love-duet’

Reasons for reading this book in this way:

1. We have to allow our understanding of the Song to be shaped by its place as part of the story of the Bible as a whole

The Bible from beginning to end is a love story about God choosing a people for himself, a husband seeking his bride, e.g. Hosea 2.16-19

As we come to the New Testament, when the Word was made flesh and dwelt among us, when God came to us in the person of his Son, this relationship between God and his people is fulfilled in the relationship between Christ and his church, e.g. 2 Corinthians 11.2

2. The whole song itself is full of clues which tell us that the main characters are God and his people

The Song of Songs works a little bit like ‘Hallelujah’
‘You saw her bathing on the roof’: David and Bathsheba
‘She tied you to her kitchen chair, she broke your throne and she cut your hair’: Samson and Delilah

The Song of Songs is full of repeated phrases, sights, smells and images that are meant to ring bells in your mind and make you think about God and his people and various aspects of their relationship.

(i) ‘You whom my soul loves’: ‘You shall love the Lord your God with all your heart and with all your soul and with all your might’

(ii) ‘My beloved is mine and I am his’: ‘I will be your God and you will be my people’

(iii) The man in the Song is a shepherd who pastures his flock and makes them lie down; throughout the Bible, God is a shepherd who pastures his flock and makes them lie down, e.g. Psalm 23.1

(iv) The arrival of the husband is described as something ‘coming up from the wilderness like columns of smoke’, which is how the Lord led the people of Israel out of Egypt, across the Red Sea and into the Promised Land, e.g. Exodus 18.18-21

(v) Various things are mentioned associated with the tent of meeting and the temple: curtains of Solomon, cedar

(vi) Landmarks and features of the land of Canaan which God in the OT promised to Israel are used: fig trees ripening and vineyards blossoming, e.g. Deuteronomy 8.8, Isaiah 5

The theme running through Song of Songs 4 which Christ wants us to know and feel is:

Christ adores the beauty of the church, which is a fruitful, fragrant, perfect land, and longs to be with her.

1. The beauty of the church

God is describing his people as a perfect landscape in the Promised Land: Gilead, tower of David, milk and honey, pomegranates, springs, fountains, flowing streams (see Deuteronomy 8.7); fragrance of Lebanon means people restored (Hosea 14)

Place names refer to particular place and the people who live there, e.g. England = land and sports team representing people
God is addressing and describing people by referring to the land in which they live.

Another image is the temple: doves, goats and sheep (sacrifical animals), pomegranates (decorated top of pillars), spices in the anointing oil and incense

Another place is Eden: garden, trees bearing the choicest of fruit
A garden fountain, a well of living water = God (Jeremiah 2.13)
Unlike Adam, who failed to guard the garden, this is a garden locked

The people are in the Promised Land, and through the sacrifices are back in the presence of God, restored to the Garden of Eden, where they are in perfect relationship with the God who is the source of eternal life, there is perfect harmony in nature, and they are surrounded by the richest of food, protected from any intruders including sin and the devil, which might cause harm

These are the privileges of Christ’s church
Wise men brought frankincense and myrrh, Jesus’s body was buried with myrrh and aloes in a garden, Mary anointed Jesus’ feet with nard: Jesus’ death is the sacrifice which restores our relationship with God broken by sin, and we can enter God’s presence and receive eternal life from him. We also have an inheritance in a perfect land as it was meant to be in Eden

God’s rescue plan involves not only human beings but the whole of creation
Israel in the promised land a foretaste
Now: blessed are the meek for they shall inherit the earth
Renewal begins now and is seen in inceasing measure through the proclamation of the gospel, the ends of the earth turn to Christ, are forgiven, are transformed by the Spirit, and walk in God’s ways, behaving rightly towards neighbours and the part of creation in which God has placed them and so enjoy his blessing
He comes to make his blessings flow far as the curse is found
Brought to completion when Christ returns, Revelation 22.1-3

It matters that we’re part of that people, included in Christ’s bride
We may have grown up in the church and seen the beauty of the land, tasted the heavenly gift: if those blessings are to be ours now and in eternity, we must be those living with Christ as our Lord and master, and trusting in him for our forgiveness

The beauty of the church overthrows the idol of environmentalism
The most beautiful place in the world is the church of Christ: in God’s purposes, the church as God’s new creation is where harmony in nature, abundant life, and good and plentiful provison begins
As the garden grows and fills the world, the land is restored and the earth is renewed
Preaching the gospel, not planting a few more trees, is where hope for the future is to be found
As those who are being transformed by the gospel, we have to live out God’s law which the Spirit is writing on our hearts, which has implications for our behaviour towards the creation – wisely working and protecting it, not exhausting it in our greed, not wantonly destroying it – Deuternomy 20.19

If we have been struggling – work, finances, temptation, weighed down by past rejection/abuse, Christ says of his bride, because of what he has done, to whom you belong, “You are altogether beautiful my love; there is no flaw in you.”

2. The longing of Christ

Christ does not yet have the full relationship with his church he will enjoy – ‘not yet’, separation, absence
The bride is not ready yet
v. 8 lists places associated with the rocky mountainous north – untamed, dangerous
This is the experience of the church in the world – uglines, barrenness (Zimbabwe), danger (terror, crime on doorstep)
Christ longs for the time when the church as left that behind
She has captivated his heart and esteems her above everything else

There is some present relationship
Christ feasts with his bride in the garden
This is not about me and my personal, private relationship with Christ
This is about the relationship between Christ and the church corporately
We drank wine with Christ and feasted with him at the Lord’s Supper
In the gathering of the church, we hear him speaking words of love to us as his word is read and preached and as we sing
Luther: ‘God meets us at trysting places’

We must take the church seriously
(a) public worship
(b) our behaviour to fellow Christians – we dare not split ourselves from, hur, resent those to whom Christ longs so passionately to come; rather we love them in a way that isn’t restricted to pleasantries on a Sunday, but looks out for them during the week, encourages and helps them, and goes after them if they are drifting

Ephesians 5.31: God has designed marriage to be a picture of the relationship between Christ and the church
All marriages preach something about that relationship, either lies or truth

Implications for marriage:

a) Husbands
- Do you adore the beauty of your wife and tell her, as Christ does?
- Under God do you place your wife higher than everything else as Christ does?
- When you are separated, do you aim to be reunited as soon as possible, like Christ?
- At home do you make the effort to spend time with your wife and eat and drink with her, like Christ?

b) Wives
- Do you encourage your husbands to spend time with you, to eat with you, and even eat food that you have prepared for him to offer him, as the church does with Christ?
- Do you guard yourself against temptation and make sure you don’t behave flirtatiously? The church is secure, locked, sealed

c) The rest of us
- This is what we need to pray for the married couples in our church and what we need to help them with
- Am I hindering this? (Always taking up time visiting, on telelphone?)
- Can I help? (Offer to look after the children one evening?)

All this so the marriages in our church reflect the love Christ has for the church, and so, unlike an increasing number of marriages in this country, are good marriages and successful marriages, because they fulfil God’s purpose for them.

Hic Sunt Dracones

Dragons occur in almost every human culture. They are present in Western mythology; one appears on the Welsh flag. They are present in Oriental culture, as we see in their splendidly glorious Chinese dragons. We are familiar with the story of St. George and the Dragon: a dragon arrives in a village and nests by the spring which supplies the village with water, to get the water the villagers must sacrifice a sheep, and failing that, a maiden, the lot falls on the princess, then the Christian George comes along, confronts the dragon and slays it. On medieval European maps, unknown parts were labelled ‘Hic sunt dracones’: here be dragons.

Dragons feature significantly among the Biblical fauna. Consider this description of Leviathan, in Job 41:

I will not keep silence concerning his limbs,
or his mighty strength,
or his goodly frame.
Who can strip off his outer garment?
Who would come near him with a bridle?
Who can open the doors of his face?
Around his teeth is terror.
His back is made of rows of shields,
shut up closely as with a seal.
One is so near another that no air can come between them.
They are joined one to another;
they clasp each other and cannot be separated.
His sneezings flash forth light,
and his eyes are like the eyelids of the dawn.
Out of his mouth go flaming torches;
sparks of fire leap forth.
Out of his nostrils comes forth smoke,
as from a boiling pot and burning rushes.
His breath kindles coals,
and a flame comes forth from his mouth.

Sometimes dragons are used to represent human authorities:

Behold I am against you,
Pharaoh king of Egypt,
the great dragon that lies
in the midst of his streams,
that says, ‘My Nile is my own;
I made it for myself.’ – Ezekiel 29.3

The Lord destroys dragons:

In that day the LORD with his hard and great and strong sword will punish Leviathan the fleeing serpent, Leviathan the twisting serpent, and he will slay the dragon that is in the sea. – Isaiah 27.1

Awake, awake, put on strength,
O arm of the LORD;
awake, as in days of old,
the generations long ago.
Was it not you who cut Rahab in pieces,
that pierced the dragon? – Isaiah 51.9

[Reading this chapter this morning was what prompted this train of thought.]

Ultimately, dragons represent the devil (and the use of dragons to represent evil human powers may derive from this, in that such rulers act as the devil’s agents, the seed of the serpent battling against the seed of the woman) and there is in the Bible an important connexion between dragons and the nativity of our Lord. In Revelation 12, “a great red dragon, with seven heads, and ten horns, and on his heads seven diadems” stands before a woman who was about to give birth to a male child, “one who is to rule all the nations with a rod of iron”, that is, Jesus, who will rule the world, so that he might devour him. And that is exactly what happened in Jesus’ life. In Matthew 2, we learn that Herod wants to destroy Jesus, and so has all the male children under two years in the region of Bethlehem killed. But this child his caught up to God and to his throne (Revelation 12.5) – no matter what the devil tries to do, Jesus is delivered and is enthroned: he escapes Herod, and even though he suffers and dies on a cross, he is raised from the dead, and ascends to the right hand of the Father as Lord and Christ. Christ is triumphant over the dragon.

The dragon seeks to devour us. The great dragon is ‘that ancient serpent, who is called the devil and Satan (Revelation 12.9)’; ‘Satan’ means accuser, and the way the dragon tries to devour us is to act as lawyer for the prosecution against us in God’s courtroom, accusing us of our sins, demanding our punishment. But we triumph over and conquer the dragon “by the blood of the Lamb and by the word of our testimony” (Revelation 12.10-11): when Christ died on the cross, he bore the punishment for sins so that when we have faith in Christ, confessing him as our Lord, the devil has no grounds to accuse us, the dragon cannot devour us.

The elementary doctrine of Christ

Therefore, let us leave the elementary doctrine of Christ and go on to maturity, not laying again a foundation of repentance from dead works and of faith towards God, and of instruction about washings, the laying on of hands, the resurrection of the dead, and eternal judgement. – Hebrews 6.1-2

In recent weeks, I have discovered that something which should be obvious apparently isn’t: when faithful Christians die, they go to heaven.

The Bishop of Durham, Tom Wright, laments in his book, Surprised by Hope, current confusion about the afterlife which is reflected in, amongst other places, contemporary liturgies:

What we have, at the moment isn’t, as the old liturgies used to say, ‘the sure and certain hope of the resurrection of the dead’, but the vague and fuzzy optimism that somehow things may work out in the end…

We now find, again and again, what has become the classic fudge for those who have not thought through what ‘resurrection’ actually means, namely the collapsing of ‘resurrection’ language into ‘going to heaven’ language.

However, in my experience, we conservative evangelicals, in our right desire not to neglect the new creation, and to emphasise the new heavens and the new earth as the ultimate hope of the elect, have gone too far in the other direction, and confuse ‘going to heaven’ with ‘resurrection’. Heaven is the new creation, or so it sounds.

Nevertheless, while the Bible shows us that our ultimate hope is bodily resurrection and life in the new creation, it is also quite clear that there is an intermediate state: when we die, while our bodies rest in the ground, our souls go to heaven where they rest consciously in the presence of God the Holy Trinity (and the souls of unbelievers go to hell, where they are punished). Both places are, in a sense, waiting rooms, between which there is no possibility of transfer, before resurrection, final judgement and our eternal destiny.

In the parable of the rich man and Lazarus (Luke 16.19-31), Lazarus dies and is carried by angels to Abraham’s side, where he is comforted, while the rich man is in Hades, in torment, where he is in anguish in the flame. To the criminal who was crucified with him, who acknowledged his sin, recognised that Jesus was the Christ and asked Jesus to remember him when he came into his kingdom, Jesus said, “Truly I say to you, today you will be with me in Paradise” (Luke 23.42-43). Paul, in a passage which very clearly expresses the longing not for disembodied life but resurrection and the putting on of a resurrection body (“a building from God, a house not made with hands, eternal in the heavens… not that we would be unclothed but that we would be further clothed, so that what is mortal may be swallowed up by life”) nevertheless states that he “would rather be away from the body and at home with the Lord” (2 Corinthians 5.1-8). When contemplating life and death, Paul says, “My desire is to depart and be with Christ, which is far better” (Philippians 1.23). In both cases, death is followed by being in the presence of God. In his second letter, Peter writes that “the Lord knows how… to keep the unrighteous under punishment until the day of judgement”, which from the context clearly means hell, where the angels who sinned were also cast and bound to be kept until the judgement (2 Peter 2.4,9). In John’s vision of heaven (Revelation 4.1), he sees “under the altar the souls of those who had been slain for the word of God and for the witness they had borne”, who long for justice to be done, and are “told to rest a little longer, until the number of their fellow servants, and their brothers should be complete” (Revelation 6.9-11). Then, on the day of judgement, the dead stand before the throne, and those whose name is not found in the book of life are thrown into the lake of fire (this is the only way that sense can be made of the reference  to this as ‘the second death’) while those whose name is in the Lamb’s book of life are citizens in the New Jerusalem, which occupies the new heaven, and the new earth (Revelation 20.12, 14-15, 21.1-2, 27).

He by himself hath sworn,
I on his oath depend;
I shall, on eagle’s wings upborne,
To heaven ascend;
I shall behold His face,
I shall His power adore,
And sing the wonders of His grace
Forevermore.

The goodly land I see,
With peace and plenty blessed;
A land of sacred liberty,
And endless rest.
There milk and honey flow,
And oil and wine abound,
And trees of life forever grow
With mercy crowned.

from ‘The God of Abraham Praise’ (Thomas Olivers c. 1765)

Every knee shall bow

Christ Jesus… though he was in the form of God, did not count equality with God a thing to be grasped, but made himself nothing, taking the form of a servant, being born in the likeness of men. And being found in human form, he humbled himself by becoming obedient to the point of death, even death on a cross. Therefore God has highly exalted him and bestowed on him the name that is above every name, so that at the name of Jesus, every knee should bow in heaven and on earth and under the earth, and every tongue confess that Jesus Christ is Lord, to the glory of God the Father. – Philippians 2.5-11

In Philippians 2, the apostle St. Paul sets the incarnation, which we are about to celebrate at the Feast of the Nativity, in a trajectory which leads to obedience to death on a cross. Because of this, God exalts him so that every knee should bow before him and every tongue confess him as Lord.

Now, in what sense do these knees bow and these tongues confess him? Is this referring to the day of judgement, when all will bow before him and all will confess him, willingly or unwillingly? I certainly think that will happen, but I don’t think that’s what is going on here. Verses 10 and 11 take Isaiah 45.23b, in which God is speaking in the first person, and apply them to Jesus:

“To me every knee shall bow,
every tongue shall swear allegiance.” – Isaiah 45.23b

This promise is grounded on God’s unfailing, righteous word, spoken on oath, and is in the context of an offer of salvation to the whole world, to those who would repent and trust in him, the only God:

“Turn to me and be saved,
all the ends of the earth!
For I am God, and there is no other.
By myself I have sworn;
from my mouth has gone out in righteousness
a word that shall not return.” – Isaiah 45.22-23a

In Philippians 2, then, we see that the God the Father’s purpose in exalting Christ following his incarnation, and obedient death, is that through the proclamation of the gospel, making known the name of Jesus, declaring the indicatives of his person and work, every one – the ends of the earth – should repent and believe in him, i.e. bow before him and confess him as Lord, and so be saved. And his purpose will not fail or be revoked. It is guaranteed by God’s own unchanging character and unwavering uprightness. The incarnation is part of a movement which will lead ultimately to the earth (not to mention heaven) being full of people living under the rule of Christ Jesus, an earth that is Christian.

Matthew 25.1-13

Click below for the sermon I preached at Morning Prayer at St. James’s, Poole, on Sunday 14th December 2008.

Matthew 25.1-13 (23:59, 10.9MB)

Matthew 25.1-13: Sermon Outline

… the bridegroom came, and those who were ready went in with him to the marriage feast, and the door was shut. – Matthew 25.10

The theme of this text is getting ready. Most of us are well aware of the need to get ready: perhaps we still have presents to buy and wrap, cards to write, groceries to get in, all those preparations to make so that when Christmas comes, when your relatives visit or when you go away, you are prepared and ready. How awful would it be to reach Christmas morning, hear the doorbell ring as your family arrive, and realise that you hadn’t bought the turkey, all the shops were shut, and you couldn’t feed your hungry relatives, you weren’t ready?

This season of Advent is all about getting ready, not just for Christmas and the celebration of Christ’s first coming, but getting ready for Christ’s second coming, for the day of judgement, for our final destiny. This is what Jesus is speaking about in this passage. He tells his disciples what heaven’s future reign, God’s future reign will be like when it comes to completion. Jesus describes a wedding scene and the story is in two acts, focusing first on the present, and then on the future.

In the first act, vv. 1-4, ten virgins go out to wait for the bridegroom as was the custom at the time. They take lamps so they can escort him to the celebrations. It’s an evening of great excitement and anticipation: when the bridegroom comes, the banquet can start. I had a sense of that kind of atmosphere when someone special comes to visit a couple of weeks ago when the Queen and the Duke of Edinburgh came to open the Children’s Hospital in Oxford. Lots of people, myself included, were gathered together, trying to secure a spot where we could catch a glimpse of her, and afterwards, there was a great crowd outside waiting to see her off. In Jesus’ parable there are two kinds of virgin waiting for the bridegroom: foolish and wise. Some were waiting with just their lamps, while others had prepared for a long wait, and didn’t want to run out of oil and have their lamps go out, so they took flasks of extra oil with them.

Jesus’ disciples would have easily understood what he was saying to them: he has used this language before – see Matthew 9.15. The bridegroom is Jesus, and the virgins, who are waiting for the bridegroom and will go in with him to the marriage feast are the disciples. These are baptised people, professing Christians, who say week after week, “He will come again to judge the quick and the dead,” people like this congregation, like you and me. Some of this number are foolish and some are wise. This builds on what Jesus said in the previous parable, where Jesus describes the wise servant (Matthew 24.45-46). This is the person who has heard the good news of Jesus Christ – he died in the place of you and me on the cross, bearing the punishment for sin, rebellion against God, he rose again having thereby conquered sin and death, he ascended into heaven, where he reigns as king at the Father’s right hand – he is trusting in Christ for forgiveness, obeys him as his master, and continues to walk in that path. In particular, this faith in Christ shows itself in the service of God’s people, meeting their needs, and this is seen in the practical, everyday things of life – taking a meal round for a member of the congregation who is unwell, doing the
shopping for someone who finds it difficult to get out to the shops, helping someone with their cleaning who has reduced mobility, keeping someone company who has recently been bereaved.

The foolish virgin corresponds with the other kind of servant (Matthew 24.48-49). This is the hypocritical disciple, who bears the name of Christ and is known as his servant, but whose lifestyle shows that there is no living trust in Christ as their saviour and master. This is seen not so much on Sunday as in the rest of the week. This person mistreats their brothers and sisters – gossip and slander about their latests faults, what they have seen them doing, the latest way in which they have wronged them, looking to destroy their reputation and boost their own. The don’t much care for the company of other Christians, those with whom they should have the most in common – they are baptised into one body, guests at the same table, partaking of the one loaf and drinking of the one cup. Instead, this person keeps bad company and spends all their time and resources satisfying their own desires, e.g. spending too much time in the pub getting drunk with people whose humour is coarse and unwholesome and whose language is blasphemous.

We can see a further demonstration of what a wise and faithful, and a foolish and wicked servant looks like in the parable of the talents (Matthew 25.14ff). The good and faithful servant takes what his master has entrusted to him, puts it to work, invests it, and makes a return to his master. The wicked and lazy servant buries what his master has given him and doesn’t do anything with it. One example would be evangelism. The faithful servant has heard the greatest news in the world and longs to tell others that they might come to know Christ for themselves, or is prepared to say to one who asks, ‘I am a Christian and this is why I have hope’, or looks for opportunities to invite people to church, a carol service, a Bible study, or even simply prays for such opportunities. The wicked servant isn’t interested in any of this, and says, ‘I don’t have the time,’ or, ‘I don’t want to be bothered with it,’ or, ‘It’s not my responsibility.’ Which kind of disciple most closely describes you? Why does it matter?

In the second act, vv. 6-13, the story unfolds. The bridegroom is delayed, time passes, it gets later and later, and all the virgins start to doze off and fall asleep. Then at midnight comes the cry, ‘Here’s the bridegroom! Come out to meet him.’ They all wake up and rise from where they have been sleeping, and trim the wicks of their lamps which have burned down. The foolish virgins find they have come to the end of their oil and their lamps are starting to go out. They are anxious to borrow some oil from the wise virgins who brought spare oil. The wise answer no: they realise there isn’t enough oil to go round and so they tell the foolish to go and get their own. While they head off, the bridegroom comes, those virgins who are ready for him, who before they fell asleep had obtained extra oil to keep their lamp burning when he came, meet him and escort him back to the house, and they go in with him and participate in the joy and happiness of the wedding celebrations. The door is shut, and no-one else can come in. Later on the others, who had not obtained extra oil before they fell asleep, arrive, and they knock on the door, desperate to get in: “Please open the door, let us in.” All they hear from the other side is, “I don’t know you,” and they are left outside.

Jesus is teaching that there will be a delay in his return. This is also seen in the surrounding parables (Matthew 24.48 and Matthew 25.19). This is clear throughout the New Testament. In 2 Peter 3, the apostle St. Peter is preparing the church for a delay in Christ’s return. Life goes on as normal, it doesn’t look as though Christ is coming back, but God’s timescale is different; what seems a long time to us is nothing to him. He is being patient: he doesn’t want anyone to perish but all to reach repentance. That’s why Christ’s return to judge is being delayed. We are waiting for that future generation we saw in Psalm 102.15, when ‘the nations will fear the name of the LORD, all the kings of the earth will revere [his] glory’, when ‘the peoples and the kingdoms assemble, to worship the LORD’. In the meantime, Christians will age and die. That is the natural interpretation of Matthew 25.5: there is no criticism here of the virgins becoming drowsy and falling asleep – it is just a consequence of the bridegroom’s delay. It mirrors the way the New Testament elsewhere describes those who have died as ‘those who have fallen asleep’. Christ will come again, the dead will be raised (v. 7 literally reads, ‘Then all those virgins rose‘) and on that day, what will count is how we each as individuals have prepared before we fall asleep, before we die. When Christ returns to judge, we cannot rely on anyone else – not our parents; their faith, their godliness cannot be transferred or shared out. We have to have faith in Christ and live it out for ourselves. Likewise, for those with child or who have children, it is not enough to have your children baptised. They need to be trusting in Jesus for the forgiveness and living out their faith. As parents, God has given you the responsibility to nurture your children’s faith, to train your children in the way they should walk, to tell them of Christ, what he has done, and how they should respond. When Christ comes, those who have been wise before death, who have not only professed faith but have trusted in Christ, have persevered in faith, and have shown that faith by obedience, will meet him and escort him to the wedding feast.

That image is used elsewhere in Scripture to describe our future hope in the new world that God will bring about when Christ returns (Revelation 19.9). Most of us know what it is like to be at a wedding reception: there’s joy, happiness, good and plentiful food, and all the focus is on the couple and celebrating with them their new life together; all other concerns and worries are temporarily put to one side. Much more than human wedding receptions, the marriage feast at the end of time is the fulfilment of all our hopes and longings, where there is nothing to cause grief and sadness, no want, nothing to harm or wound us, where there is unparalleled delight and we will be perfectly satisfied. It will be like that not temporarily, but forever. See Isaiah 25.6-8, Revelation 7.15-17. We turn on our newspapers and we see a frankly terrible world at times – terrorism in Mumbai, killings and destruction in Nigeria, cholera in Zimbabwe, Baby P. Human beings can’t solve all those problems – part of the tragedy of Baby P is the failure of human safeguards. We can try and district ourselves, and a big temptation is that this time of year becomes simply a form of escapism: we try and forget all that is wrong in the world as we spend money we don’t have and eat and drink too much, inside in the warm with our friends and family. But it won’t put the world right: the problems still remain. The Bible is honest about the kind of evil that exists in the world, but it also hold out the hope of a future world that Christ will usher in free from all of that, the world in which all is as it was meant to be and should be. This marriage feast is the feast that matters, and it should fill our vision and be our focus.

The wise, those who have made sure they are ready in this life, will enjoy it, but after they go in, the door is shut. Those people who have been foolish before they die, who are not ready, who have not trusted in Christ and whose lives reflect that by not bearing the fruit of obedient service, will be shut out. No matter how much they profess faith in Christ and take his name upon their lips then (‘Sir, sir’ in v. 11 is literally, ‘Lord, Lord’), he will say, ‘I don’t know you’ and they will not be let in. Friends, it is possible to be a professing Christian, to have been made a disciple of Christ in baptism, to have been brought into his family, the church on earth, to be part of that people which is looking forward to his return, to say the creeds week after week – ‘he will come to judge the quick and the dead’, to sing, ‘O Come, O Come Emmanuel’ enthusiastically, and to be woken up on resurrection morning unprepared, unready, to have Jesus say to you, ‘I don’t know you’, and so to be shut out from the marriage feast, from the new creation. How devastating that would be. So Jesus says, ‘Watch therefore, for you know neither the day nor the hour.’ We don’t know when the delay will be over and Christ will return, and when he does, it will be too late then if we are not ready for it. He says to his disciples, he says to us here this morning, keep that day in the front of your mind and prepare for it. Be like the wise virgins in the parable, who took flasks of oil with them. Trust in Christ, depend on him as your saviour and live with him as your master. And keep trusting in him, keep living out that faith in obedience, because it is the virgin whose lamp is still burning, the disciple who perseveres, who remains faithful, whom Christ will take to be with him in the new creation.

… the bridegroom came, and those who were ready went in with him to the marriage feast, and the door was shut.

In the name of the Father, and of the Son, and of the Holy Spirit. Amen.