Ready For The Wedding? - Matthew 25:1-13


 

It is the season.  How many of you have attended or been invited to a wedding over the course of the last month, or have one in the new few weeks.  Over the last three weekends, I have known five couples that decided to tie the knot.  It is not simply a recent trend.  More than half of the weddings I have performed in the last eighteen years have taken place in the months of May and June.  If you look at the anniversary celebrations in the newsletter, this congregation celebrates twice as many marriages in June than any other month.  I began wondering if there was a reason for the popularity of May and June weddings.  I thought maybe it had to do with their being the months with the least chance of unsettled weather, then I realized that I was thinking regionally, I mean, it was only a couple of weeks ago that Colorado was still dealing with a snowstorm, and we’ve had weekends full of unsettled weather recently.  That regional thinking also had me considering it was because all the flowers, particularly roses, would be in full bloom, but again, that is regional, not national or worldwide thinking. 

I decided to do a little research.  The three most common reasons I found online were:

1)        June gained its popularity because it took its name from the Roman goddess Juno, who was known as the goddess of marriage—getting married in June was a tribute to her and a means of seeking her blessing upon the nuptials.

2)       Getting married in May and June is connected to an agrarian lifestyle.  If a couple were to wed in May or June, and immediately conceive, the mom-to-be would not be too far along in her pregnancy to be unable to help come harvest time.  The child would be born and the wife recovered, barring another pregnancy, in time to be ready and strong for the next harvest.

3)       Finally, several sources cited, possibly the most romantic of the reasons, in May and June, the bride would be the “freshest.”  With the arrival of May, Lent and come and gone, Easter was past, warmer weather (again a Northern Hemisphere thing), was here, the winter clothes could be put away, and it was time, you’re going to love this, for a person’s annual bath.

How many of you here were married in May or June?  Which of these applied to your reason for choosing May or June?  Did you simply choose the time because it was “traditional”?  If so, now you know what lies behind the tradition.

Whether you or someone you know was married in May, June, or any of the other ten months, you know that timing is important.  Whether it is the timing of planning out vacation time for the wedding or the honeymoon (I actually had to work the morning of day Anita and I married so that I could have the following weekend off), to the purchase of the marriage license (it has to be purchased before the wedding, and is only valid for 60 days from the date of purchase), to the timing (at least in weddings where folks are particular about this sort of thing, and I’ve officiated some of them), of the entrance of the grandmothers, mothers, and then the bride herself.

If the timing gets off, it can cause problems.  I remember the first wedding I officiated back when I was a student pastor in Oxford.  Everything and everyone was in place.  I had prayed with the bride and groom in their respective waiting areas.  The music was playing.  Everyone was in place.  The groom and I took our spots in the front of the sanctuary.  The bridal march began.  I prepared to raise the congregation.  The groom turned in anticipation of seeing his bride for the first time that day.  The doors remained closed.  The music continued.  The doors remained closed.  The groom looked at me, tears forming in his eyes.  The doors remained closed.  Suddenly the doors opened, and in walked the bride.  None of us had taken into account the delay that would occur when, because of the logics of that particular building, the bride would have to wait until after the groom and I entered the sanctuary to come out, then walk from the educational wing of the building, the entire length of the sanctuary, get her dress and train and everything in place, and then open the doors to come in.  That delay in timing though made so many folks, especially the groom, very uneasy.

Imagine yourself one of the ten bridesmaids in the parable that Jesus told.  The ten bridesmaids all had their lamps.  They had known that at some point they would need the lamps—possibly to see their way home from the wedding banquet.  However, the bridegroom was delayed in his arrival.  The timing was thrown off.  Darkness came, they had to light their lamps while they waited.  The bridegroom didn’t show up until midnight.  Five of the bridesmaids (their dads were probably Boy Scouts—or maybe they were kin to our favorite “bag lady”) were prepared.  They had extra oil, and they were ready.  The other five were not—they had to go in search of some oil for their dimming lamps—and by the time they purchased their extra fuel and arrived at the wedding banquet, the doors had been shut, and they were not allowed to enter—the bridegroom even denied knowing them.

Timing is important—if we have been in or attended a wedding, we knew what time it was supposed to start and we made sure to be there in place and ready.  One, of a couple of, reasons that Anita and I didn’t attend one wedding that we were invited to over the last month is that while I received an invitation to the wedding via Facebook from the bride, the daughter of a longtime friend, we were never told what time the wedding was to take place.  Unless you are going to sit at the church, or other locale, all day, knowing the time and arriving in time is important.

However, there is a wedding that we have been invited to, that like the one from a couple of weeks ago, we don’t know the time of the event.  In fact, we do not even know the day of the event.  How are we supposed to get there on time?  The truth of the matter is that we cannot get there on our own.  We are like the bridesmaids of Jesus’ parable.  We are completely dependent upon the groom to get us to the banquet on time.

This is Ascension Sunday.  This is the final Sunday of Easter which marks the departure of the resurrected Jesus from the gathered disciples.  The first chapter of Acts offers us this depiction:

So when they had come together, they asked him, “Lord, is this the time when you will restore the kingdom to Israel?” He replied, “It is not for you to know the times or periods that the Father has set by his own authority. But you will receive power when the Holy Spirit has come upon you; and you will be my witnesses in Jerusalem, in all Judea and Samaria, and to the ends of the earth.” When he had said this, as they were watching, he was lifted up, and a cloud took him out of their sight. While he was going and they were gazing up toward heaven, suddenly two men in white robes stood by them. They said, “Men of Galilee, why do you stand looking up toward heaven? This Jesus, who has been taken up from you into heaven, will come in the same way as you saw him go into heaven.”[i]

 We find ourselves living now between the Ascension of Jesus and that trumpet call when Jesus will return to, as Revelation depicts, gather up His Bride, the Church, and bring her to the Great Wedding Banquet.  The question is, my brothers and sisters, will we be ready to be members of the wedding party.  That is what the parable of Jesus asks us this morning.  Will we be prepared for the bridegrooms return?

How do we prepare for His return?  The same way that any bride prepares for her wedding.  I’m not talking about selecting the location or the caterers.  The Groom has taken care of that—it’ll be the New Jerusalem and His Father is fixing the meal.   I’m not talking about picking out the dress.  The Groom has done that—it will be the white robe washed in His blood.  I’m not talking about sending out the invitations, the Groom has already done that—though outpouring of His Holy Spirit and the words of everyone from the Apostles who walked with Him to the evangelists (not televangelists, but everyone who shares the good news of the gospel) who move among us today.  I’m not talking about the something borrowed, something blue, and all those other things—that’s all superstition and the Groom has no room for that, in fact giving in to superstitions are the exact opposite of being prepared.  What we have to do to be prepared for the wedding and its subsequent banquet is to do the most important thing that every bride must do.  It is to decide if we are prepared to be 100% committed to the Groom.  Every bride, who is truly ready to be married, must decide that she is ready to commit to the groom…that she is ready to give herself completely over to him.

To ask if we are ready for the wedding is to ask if we are ready to give ourselves 100% over to the groom.  Are we ready to give ourselves completely over to Christ, to not only accept Him as our Savior, but to call Him Lord…to give Him complete access to our lives?

We shouldn’t just say “yes” and think we are ready.  That’s why too many of today’s marriages end in divorce.  Are we truly ready?  Are we ready to commit our lives completely to the Groom—to give control of our lives totally to Christ—to let Jesus be Lord over not just one or two hours on Sunday morning, but to let Him be in control of our watches and our calendars; to not only let Jesus be in control of the little bit of our income we put in the collection plate, but to be in complete control of all our finances; to not only be in control of our church work, but in charge of all of our labor; to be not only in control of who we are in worship with, but in charge of all our relationships; to be not only in control what we eat and drink during Holy Communion or covered-dish lunches, but to be in charge of everything we put into our bodies. The Groom who has already given Himself 100% to us for all the world to see on the hilltop called Calvary wants nothing less from His Bride.

We don’t know when the wedding day will be here, so we need to be ready.

Are we ready?

Are we truly ready?

Are we 100% ready?

In the Name of the Father and the Son and the Holy Spirit.  Amen.



[i] Acts 1:6-11

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