The End of the World

In the third week of December 2007, while I was in prayer I had a strong sense of God speaking to me, telling me that I needed to speed up on things a little because time was running out on humankind. "I'm going to pour out my grace in great abundance for the next five years," he said. "So make the most of it."

"And after that, what, Lord?" I asked. "You're gonna pull the plug?"

There was no reply, except for a repetition of the same message again, that for the next five years he was going to pour his grace out like never before, but about what was going to happen after that nary a word. God can be pretty annoying with the way he communicates sometimes.

I shared this with a few people who were close to me, and after a lot of subsequent thought and prayer came to the conclusion that — assuming the message was legitimate — God was going to do his best to draw as many people as he could for the next five years after which he would, quite possibly, take a step back and let the pieces just fall where they would.

Fast forward to January last year. I got into a conversation with a neighbor who asked me if I had heard anything about the world coming to an end in December 2012. My first thought was that somebody had told him of the "message" I had received and was getting set to rag me about it, but then decided that he couldn't possibly have heard about it. None of my confidants had big mouths. I asked him what made him think the world was coming to an end. He grinned cryptically and asked me to Google it.

I went home and did as he suggested, my mouth dropping open at the number of links about December 2012 that popped up. It seemed that everybody from the Mayans and the Chinese to the New Agers and certain astronomers believed the world was going to end in that month! A few months later Roland Emmerich got into the act, releasing his extremely popular disaster film 2012 based on these beliefs, leading a lot of people who had seen the movie, especially youngsters, to ask me if the world was ending in two years. For some reason people think preachers have the answers to all questions. Some folks asked Jesus the same question too, but, unlike me, he does have the answers to all questions, so it's best we see what he says.

Jesus had been sitting on the Mount of Olives when his disciples approached him. "“Tell us,” they said, “what will be the sign of your coming and of the end of the age?” (Matthew 24:3).

After a long sermon on the signs they could expect to see, Jesus said he couldn't tell them when he would return. "No one knows about that day or hour," he said, cautioning them to be alert, therefore, because when the day did come, he would come like a thief in the night (cf. Matthew 24:36, 42-44). He then went on to tell them three stories: one about a bunch of women who were invited to a wedding; another about a man who went on a journey leaving varying amounts of money with his servants; and the third about the sorting out of the righteous from the unrighteous after the return of a king. We'll look at all the stories, the first in some detail.

The Ten Virgins (Matthew 25:1-13)
“At that time the kingdom of heaven will be like ten virgins who took their lamps and went out to meet the bridegroom. Five of them were foolish and five were wise. The foolish ones took their lamps but did not take any oil with them. The wise, however, took oil in jars along with their lamps. The bridegroom was a long time in coming, and they all became drowsy and fell asleep. “At midnight the cry rang out: ‘Here’s the bridegroom! Come out to meet him!’ “Then all the virgins woke up and trimmed their lamps. The foolish ones said to the wise, ‘Give us some of your oil; our lamps are going out.’ “ ‘No,’ they replied, ‘there may not be enough for both us and you. Instead, go to those who sell oil and buy some for yourselves.’ “But while they were on their way to buy the oil, the bridegroom arrived. The virgins who were ready went in with him to the wedding banquet. And the door was shut. “Later the others also came. ‘Sir! Sir!’ they said. ‘Open the door for us!’ “But he replied, ‘I tell you the truth, I don’t know you.’ “Therefore keep watch, because you do not know the day or the hour.

As with all the parables that Jesus told, this image is borrowed from the practices and customs of Jesus's times. Let's take a brief look at an Israelite wedding. In an Israelite wedding, the focus was not on the bride, as it is in our weddings. The focus was on the bridegroom.

When the time came for him to be married, he would leave his house, or his parents house, and make his way across town to the house in which all prospective brides waited. He would pick them all up and then make his way back to his house where the wedding celebrations would be held.

It could be pretty late when this happened, and night time in a first century Israelite village could get very dark. If you wanted to negotiate the darkness you needed a lamp, and you had to make sure that it stayed lit.

This is the setup for the story. And this is the story retold:
 
Ten women go with lamps to await the arrival of the bridegroom. Five of them are prepared with extra oil. Five of them however make no extra preparation. It is what makes them "foolish" for reasons we will soon discover. The bridegroom is delayed in his coming and, tiring of waiting for him, the women fall off to sleep. Suddenly at midnight the bridegroom’s arrival is announced. The women wake up and hastily trim their lamps. The ones without surplus oil realize that their lamps are running dry. They plead with the other women to share their oil, but the women refuse, saying there is not enough to go around. As the women without oil go out to try to find some, the bridegroom comes and takes those who are prepared with him to the wedding banquet. When the foolish women arrive much later, they are not allowed in. "I do not know you," the bridegroom says.
 
Next: So what does it all mean?