Matthew 25 Devotional
by Pastor Lawrence

This chapter continues with the same theme as chapter twenty-four in light of the second coming of Christ, and the Parable of the Ten Virgins is given by Jesus to exhort his disciples to continue watching and eagerly anticipating Christ’s imminent return. In the parable, a man and a woman are about to be married, but it is not certain that the date has been fixed; at least the hour has not been settled upon. Perhaps this is the reason we now have such extensive wedding invitations continually asking guests to RSVP. But it was actually a part of the festivities to have the bridegroom show up unannounced to surprise his bride and bring her to his home in order to be married. As is the case today, the bride was to be accompanied by her bridesmaids, and in this case, she had ten young ladies, or virgins. In addition to obtaining their dresses, apparently these young women were also responsible for maintaining their own oil lamps in case the bridegroom came in the middle of the night and they needed light to find their way to his house in the dark.

In the story, there are five wise virgins who are prepared with both lamps and oil, and there are five foolish virgins who brought their lamps but forgot to fill the lamps with oil. That night they all anticipated that the groom might arrive, but when it appeared that he was not coming, they all settled down at the house of the bride’s parents and fell asleep, perhaps on the floor in the common room. But then at midnight they heard the shout of one of the groomsmen saying, “Here is the bridegroom! Come out to meet him.” Quickly all the ladies got ready and prepared their lamps, but, of course, the foolish virgins didn’t have any oil, so they asked the wise maids to share some of their oil with them. But the wise were unwilling to share with them fearing that there wouldn’t be enough and told them to go buy some in town instead. And while they were out shopping, the bridegroom came and took his bride along with the five virgins who were ready for him, and together they went into the wedding feast to celebrate.

A little while later the five foolish virgins show up to join the feast but the door was shut, and when they knocked the master of the house said to them, “Truly, I do not know you,” and sent them away. That might seem rather harsh to us, but this was meant to be a highly anticipated event, the most important day in the life of the bride and groom, and the bridesmaids were expected to value it and to be prepared for it. We can see this clearly in the Song of Solomon how the virgins were just as excited as the bride herself in anticipation of the coming of the groom. If they weren’t excited, then they weren’t worthy bridesmaids.

With more revelation given later on in the New Testament, we come to understand that we are not mere bridesmaids, but we are the bride of Christ herself. Therefore, if anyone ought to be ready for Christ’s return it ought to be his bride. And similarly we have a wedding that has been planned, but there has been no save-the-date. We don’t know the hour or the day of Christ’s return, but we continually listen for the voice of our beloved; we look for him to come leaping over the mountains and bounding over the hills. We anticipate the arrival of his entourage when he comes and says to us, “Come away with me, my love.” And so, we continually look out the window of our hearts and await the return of our savior, for we know neither the hour nor the day.