The Joyful Reveille - Sermon for the Last Sunday of the Church Year

Last Sunday of the Church Year, November 22^nd, Year of Our + Lord 2022
The Joyful Reveille: Matthew 25:1-13

 

LSB 516:1

Wake, awake, for night is flying;
The watchmen on the heights are crying:
Awake, Jerusalem, arise!
Midnight hears the welcome voices
And at the thrilling cry rejoices;
Oh, where are ye, ye virgins, wise?
The Bridegroom comes, awake;
Your lamps with gladness take;
Alleluia! With bridal care yourselves prepare
To meet the Bridegroom, who is near.

 

     It’s a great day for trumpets and cornets.  Our sermon theme is “The Joyful Reveille,” because this Last Sunday of the Church Year is a day of great rejoicing.  Wouldn’t it be great to have a bugler, or trumpeter, actually blowing reveille to start the sermon? 

 

   What, you don’t find the jarring blasts of reveille, that traditional military wake-up
bugle call, all that joyful?  For new recruits hoping for a bit more sleep, reveille, blasted on a bugle, is jarring and annoying.  That’s really the whole point of blowing reveille, to wake someone who needs to be get up, but persists in dozing.  Please, just five more minutes. 

 

   Your bugler may have been your mother, yelling up the stairs that you’d better get moving or you’ll miss the bus.  Or perhaps you know that special joy of your drill instructor throwing an empty metal garbage can down the middle of the squad bay, then playing the lid with a baseball bat, greeting you into another fine military morning. 

 

   Or maybe your reveille still comes, silently, at three in the morning, when the impending pressures of life and work and finances and worries about kids make you suddenly wide awake, bolt upright in bed.  Exhausted, but now you’ll never get back to sleep. 

 

       We don’t like to be rudely awakened.  So we don’t often enjoy reveille.  When are we ever bursting with joy to be shocked out of bed, at O-dark-thirty in the morning? 

 

   So maybe it’s hard to take the parable of the ten virgins as good news, even though you believe in Jesus.  But somehow our hymnwriter, Philipp Nicolai, found great joy in this parable.  Do you?  Are you eager and well prepared for the return of the Bridegroom?  Or are you more like a Foolish Virgin, planning on filling your lamp later? 

 

     We should anticipate the End, the Last Day, like Christmas morning.  As a child, and, truth be told, often even as an adult, the prospect of opening all the presents under the tree has made me eager to jump out of bed and race downstairs, the earlier the better. 

 

   What else can make us spring joyfully from bed?  How about an unexpected homecoming?  Homecomings, and the separations that cause them, used to be the special purview of military families, truckdrivers, and the like.  But the world is on the move like never before in history.  Millions move, across continents and oceans, to flee problems, or look for greener pastures.  And most carry the constant question: Will I ever get home again?  Covid 19 created artificial separations, not geographically far from loved ones, but cut off none the less.  These isolations were both mitigated and made harder by contact through screens.  To see your loved ones, but not be able to give them a hug, is a strange and bitter anguish.    

 

   Whatever the cause of separation, if your beloved, your children or grandchildren, your wife or husband, or fiancé, has been gone for a long time, and then suddenly arrives home unexpectedly, even if it’s 2:00 a.m., you can get up for that, with joy.  Because your beloved, the one you have been missing, the one who makes you whole, has come home.  

 

     Christmas morning and the homecoming of a loved one, these two earthly examples do a nice job of capturing the kind of joy the Scriptures describe for God’s beloved people, when Jesus returns.  And that makes sense, because Jesus is the big brother who has gone far away, to make a new life, prepare a new home, for all of His family.   And Jesus is the real gift of Christmas, the gift of the Bridegroom, the Son of God made flesh, come into the world to rescue and save His beloved bride, the Church, the assembly of all the believers. 

 

 LSB 516:2

Zion hears the watchmen singing,
And all her heart with joy is springing;
She wakes, she rises from her gloom;
For her Lord comes down all glorious,
The strong in grace, in truth victorious.
Her Star is ris’n, her Light is come.
Now come, Thou blessèd One, Lord Jesus, God’s own Son,
Hail! Hosanna! We enter all, the wedding hall
To eat the Supper at Thy call.

 

     Why is Zion gloomy?  Why would God’s people feel like their surroundings are dark and depressing?  Philipp Nicolai suggests that the rising of the Virgins is a departure from gloom.  And it is, for Jesus is teaching us about His Return, on the Last Day.  He is coming to deliver us from this vale of tears, to eternal joy with Him, in heaven. 

 

   But, does this note of promise ring a bit flat for you?  Don’t we love our lives?  You and I live pretty well, for the most part.  Are we looking forward to the End?  The discordant note is our doubt.  One of the central teachings of this parable is a warning against complacency, a warning not to forget that Jesus is returning.  This warning is of particular importance for you and me.  For we live in an age of remarkable comfort and bounty. 

 

     For all the unease and current economic problems, the poorest Americans still today enjoy luxuries and technological marvels that kings and queens could not even imagine one hundred years ago.  And most of us have gotten used to an unprecedented level of bounty in our lives.  Beef may be expensive, but we can still go down to Krulls/Lynns after service and buy ourselves a juicy steak to cook on the grill.  God has showered many great and wonderful earthly blessings upon us.  And every day satan tries to trick us into making these gifts and the comforts they offer our highest good, so that we forget about the Giver.  Almighty God is the One who delivers every good thing to us.  But can we remember the greater gift, can we remember the Giver? 

 

   Earthly blessings are wonderful.  But faith created by the Word of God is what we need to be ready for the return of Christ.  Very well, you learned that in Sunday School.  I’m a believer, just ask me.  But are we now just dozing comfortably through our lives, never refilling our lamps?  Will our lights still be burning when the End comes, be that the Last Day, or our personal end, our physical death? 

 

   Faith lives from the Word of Christ, and so it is strong and enduring.  But if we starve it long enough, faith can die.  If we foolishly cut ourselves off from the good oil, the flame can go out.

 

      We live very comfortably, but our wealth and technology haven’t changed our biggest problems.  We are remarkably blessed.  But no amount of riches or technology can take away the sadness of being unloved.  No material thing can truly ease the pain of being abandoned or betrayed by someone you love.  No bank account or oil well or fancy electronic device can take away the guilt that hounds you for the things you’ve done.  The healthcare system may or may not ever get fixed in America.  But even if it does, people will still get sick, and die. 

 

     Philipp Nicolai is right, still today, almost five centuries after he wrote this hymn.  The good things of this world help us in many ways.  But they cannot fundamentally help us with the worst things we suffer.  Like foolish virgins, we are tempted to look for eternal light in the shiny baubles of this world.  But no amount of man-made light can dispel the gloom of human existence, because the real darkness flows from sin, the sins of others, from our own sins, and from our sinfulness.  Against these, earthly goods have no potency. 

 

     But, the Bridegroom is omnipotent, all powerful.  He is the victor over every trouble we face, because He has solved our central problem, which is sin.  By the blood of His Cross, Jesus has purchased your forgiveness.  The Bridegroom for whom the Church waits is Jesus of Nazareth, who has died, even more who has risen from the dead, and ascended into heaven, to prepare a place for His beloved, for you.  His victory for you is complete; it is finished.  The Bridegroom is your solution, and He is coming, to take you into a bountiful new reality that you cannot even imagine.  Arise, sing, rejoice, the table is set, and Jesus is holding our seats for us.       

 

LSB 516:3

Now let all the heavens adore Thee,
Let saints and angels sing before Thee,
With harp and cymbal’s clearest tone;
Of one pearl each shining portal,
Where joining with the choir immortal
We gather round Thy radiant throne.
No eye has seen the light, No ear has heard the might
Of Thy glory; Therefore will we eternally
Sing hymns of praise and joy to Thee!

      By the gracious will and working of God, we will sing hymns of praise and joy to Christ, in the glory of heaven, where He reigns with the Father and the Holy Spirit, forever and ever, Amen.  And also, by the gracious will and working of God, we do sing hymns of praise and joy to Christ, right now.  And as we sing, God is working through our praises and joy to continue to expand His Church. 

      We may come here on Sunday mornings for a lot of different reasons.  Habit, compulsion, guilt, socialization, or even self-righteous pride.  Whatever our reasons, the Lord gathers us for the best reason.  Jesus draws us here, even through our imperfect motivations, so that He can pour out His grace and mercy on you and me, through His powerful Word, and His mysterious Sacraments.  God draws us here, because you and I need His grace and mercy.  I need forgiveness.  We all need forgiveness, every day.   

 

   Whatever your motives for being here today, hear this: the Holy Spirit has moved you to come, so that He can forgive you.  By God’s grace, you come craving God’s Word, and the mercy and peace it offers.  You have the peace of knowing that God has promised to meet us here, to be truly present, in the Word, and in the Wine and Bread.  Jesus is truly present to bless us and strengthen our faith, for another day, another week, until Jesus comes back.  To deliver to us all these beautiful promises, God draws us together.  

   Every day, when and where and how He wills, the Holy Spirit works on us, and in us, and through us, shaping us by His Word to the form of Christ, and sending us back into the world to live our lives as Christians, to do our regular boring daily work.  But your life in the world has an exceptional difference, the difference of Christ and His Spirit, the difference of knowing that the future for His Bride the Church is better and brighter than any of us can yet imagine. 

      As God works on us, He also works through us, causing us to speak joyfully of our faith, of our life in Christ, of our congregation, God’s family gathered around this altar.  God works to show how the forgiveness and new life we have in Jesus changes everything.  

And that change is what people need.  That is what God longs to give.  And so, through these seemingly unimpressive means, God grows His Church.   And He will continue to grow her, until that Day when Christ returns, and we will be free from every sin, free from every need, free to rejoice and sing, with every saint and angel, of all time.  Wake, Awake!  The Joyful Reveille is playing for you. 

 

Come Lord Jesus, Come, Amen.