Grace, mercy and peace be unto you from God, our Father, and from our Lord and Savior Jesus Christ. Amen. Our text is the Holy Gospel reading which has already been read.

Dear friends in Christ, back in October 1973, the Arab nations of OPEC declared an oil embargo against the United States, and because we were and still are dependent on foreign oil, this embargo triggered an energy crisis that many of you remember. Even if you weren't alive then, you probably have seen videos of the long lines at the pump caused by the rationing of gasoline. The long term effects of this energy crisis led to the production of more fuel-efficient cars, an increased emphasis on energy conservation—the Ad Council came out with the slogan of "Don't Be Fuelish"—and even today we still see the ongoing efforts to make the United States more energy independent.

This energy crisis was a wakeup call, teaching our country that even a short term cutoff in our oil supply can wreak all sorts of havoc, so in 1975 one of the measures the government took was to establish the US Strategic Petroleum Reserve, which is today able to hold about 727 million barrels of oil. This amount would supply only 34 days of current daily US consumption, but the hope is that these strategic oil reserves would soften the blow of a short term cutoff in domestic production or foreign imports.

In our Gospel reading, Jesus tells a parable about Judgment Day that hinges on another type of strategic oil reserves: fuel for lamps. He compares the Last Day and the beginning of the eternal feast in God's Kingdom to an ancient wedding tradition that is unfamiliar to us, even strange. An appointed group of young women would wait with burning lamps until the bridegroom came, when they would go out and meet him to enter the marriage feast together, lamps brightly blazing the way. If the young women didn't have a burning lamp, or if they arrived at the wedding hall late, they were shut out of the celebration with no chance of entry. So in the parable everything boils down to having enough oil to make it through the night. The decisive difference between the wise and foolish virgins was that the wise ones had strategic oil reserves in their flasks, and the foolish ones had nothing extra to fuel their lamps.

Since the extra oil made all the difference, it would be a misunderstanding of the parable to assume that the problem with the virgins was that they fell asleep while they were waiting for the bridegroom. All ten slept. The problem with the foolish virgins was that they hadn't counted on the bridegroom delaying for so long. They weren't prepared in the event of an energy crisis. They sinned by failing to stock up on oil when they had the chance and by assuming that the bridegroom would follow their timetable instead of coming whenever he was ready. The wise virgins, on the other hand, directed all their attention toward the bridegroom; by stocking up on oil they were saying, "We are completely at the bridegroom's service, and all we care about is meeting him whenever he comes. We're going to be prepared to meet him whether he comes at sundown, midnight, or the break of dawn."

The bridegroom wanted all ten virgins to be attendants at his wedding. They all had received invitations with plenty of notice, they knew what they were supposed to do, and He expected them to all act wisely. The foolish virgins were just as able as the wise ones to purchase more oil and a flask to carry it. The problem was that they didn't consider the bridegroom and his wedding important enough to plan for. So the parable is ultimately a warning that the only ones who will make it to the wedding banquet are those who have a plan, who are ready, who have a strategic oil reserve.

So what does this all mean for us? Jesus says that this parable tells us what the kingdom of God is like on Judgment Day, and so in order for us to get the full picture, we need to keep in mind all that Jesus teaches about His Kingdom.

First, the bridegroom is Jesus. In Matthew 22, Jesus tells a different parable about a king who gave a wedding feast for his son, and sent out his servant to invite his guests. God is the King who sent His only-begotten Son into the world to establish the Kingdom of God on earth, and the Son gladly obeyed His Father's will, for us men and for our salvation. At Christmas He took up human flesh so that He could go on to live a sinless life in fulfillment of God's Law; to lay down His life as a sacrifice for the sin of the whole world on Good Friday; to rise from the grave on Easter Sunday to declare victory over sin, death, the devil, and hell; to commission His apostles to go out to sinners to preach the Gospel, baptize, absolve, and feed them with His true body and blood; and to send the Holy Spirit to create faith in sinners through the Word and Sacraments. These are all the things Jesus, the Bridegroom, came to do for His Church, as St. Paul says in Ephesians 5, "Christ loved the church and gave himself up for her, that he might sanctify her, having cleansed her by the washing of water with the word, so that he might present the church to himself in splendor, without spot or wrinkle or any such thing, that she might be holy and without blemish."

And so the Bridegroom Jesus Christ has sought you out, to bring you sinners into His Bride, the Church, through Holy Baptism, where you are washed clean of your sins in the blood of the Lamb. You have been made pure, holy, and spotless virgins by the righteousness of Jesus Christ, and God the King has called and invited you to His eternal wedding feast in heaven, where you will remain forever after you have lived by faith in His undeserved grace and mercy for the sake of His Son. And as you prepare for the coming of your Bridegroom on the Last Day, you don't have to purchase lamps or oil or flasks for yourself, since Jesus Christ Himself has ransomed you, redeemed you, purchased you with His holy, precious blood, and with His innocent, suffering and death so that you may live under Him in His Kingdom in everlasting righteousness, innocence, and blessedness.

And so for you, Judgment Day is not a terrifying prospect but a joyful one because Jesus Christ, through the Word and the Sacraments in the Church, pours out upon you freely the oil of the Holy Spirit, who daily and richly forgives all of your sins, who strengthens and keeps you steadfast in the one true faith. The Holy Spirit is given to you in Baptism, which is a freely given "water of life" (Revelation 22:17) that provides you with more oil for your lamps than you could ever burn up in ten lifetimes.

But there is more, always more with our generous Lord Jesus. He continues to call out to comfort you repentant sinners through the preached Gospel and Holy Absolution. And He invites you to be given His own precious, life-giving body and blood. Jesus says, "I am the bread of life; whoever comes to me shall not hunger, and whoever believes in Me shall never thirst" (John 6:35). He says, "Blessed are those who hunger and thirst for righteousness, for they shall be satisfied" (Matthew 5:6), satisfied with His own righteousness as He gives you His forgiving, enlivening body and blood. Dear friends, as your Lord Jesus bestows upon you these precious gifts in Word and Sacrament, He is delivering to you more oil than you could ever burn up as you await His second coming, which will come suddenly, at an hour we do not expect.

But there also is a responsibility on the part of those who are given this oil. If the United States had not taken actions to establish and maintain the strategic oil reserves, they wouldn't be prepared. If the wise virgins hadn't made sure their flasks were full, they would have been no different than the foolish ones. So the watchful, prepared Christian life is one of action. In the verses leading up to today's Gospel, Jesus says, "Who then is the faithful and wise servant, whom his master has set over his household, to give them their food at the proper time? Blessed is that servant whom his master will find so doing when he comes. Truly, I say to you, he will set him over all his possessions. But if that wicked servant says to himself, 'My master is delayed,' and begins to beat his fellow servants and eats and drinks with drunkards, the master of that servant will come on a day when he does not expect him and at an hour he does not know 51 and will cut him in pieces and put him with the hypocrites. In that place there will be weeping and gnashing of teeth" (Matthew 24:45-51). We need to be busy in this life doing the things our Lord has given us to do; not only receiving His grace in the Church, but also leading lives of love and service to our neighbor.

So don't abuse your freedom in Christ. Don't take the grace of Christ as a license to sin. Instead Jesus says you should live in watchful expectation and excited anticipation of your Lord's coming through repentance, prayer, faithful use of the means of grace, and good works. Of course, you can't ever rely on your own actions and faithfulness, since we all sin in weakness, we all sleep, we all die. You are always 100% dependent on the forgiveness of our Lord Jesus Christ and the oil of the Holy Spirit, to prepare you to be like the five wise virgins.

If we apply what we know about the reality of God's Kingdom to this morning's parable, this means that in advance of the wedding, the bridegroom would have provided not only the wise but also the foolish virgins with all the oil they could ever need and flasks to carry reserves; the only difference between the wise and the foolish is that the foolish virgins chose not to bring along the oil that had been given to them, so it wasn't the bridegroom's fault when they turned up unprepared. And so it is for us. If we are wise virgins, it is all because of the Bridegroom's saving gifts to us. But the warning of this parable is that we who have been called by Baptism and enlightened by the Holy Spirit's gifts must not return to the foolishness of faithless unpreparedness.

The foolish virgins today are those who refuse the free gifts of forgiveness, life, and salvation delivered through the Word and the Sacraments in the Church and instead live without regard to the Bridegroom's promised coming. They say, "Oh, I can always put off repentance and churchgoing until later on; right now I'm just going to live for the moment, take pleasure in the passions and possessions of this world, and ignore the possibility of the Bridegroom's return. Surely I've got plenty of oil in my lamp, but if not, I can always get some at the last minute." But as the parable shows, trying to get oil at the last minute doesn't work. So be wise, and build up your strategic oil reserve while you can, for "The day of the Lord will come like a thief in the night," like the sudden onset of labor for a pregnant woman, at an hour when we do not expect.

The Last Day will come unexpectedly, but that is also true of the death of our bodies. Many generations have passed since our Lord ascended to heaven, and every generation of Christians has watched carefully for the return of the Lord, but He is working on His own timetable, so we also must recognize that we might die before His return. In our parable, all ten virgins fall asleep, and this can be understood to refer to our death, because the Bible refers to death as sleep.

We are all poor, miserable sinners who deserve temporal and eternal death, and so we will die and must prepare for death wisely, not foolishly. And so we pray in Psalm 90, "Teach us to number our days, that we may get a heart of wisdom" (Psalm 90:12). To think that our days will just keep going on and on indefinitely is not wise, but foolish. And so we prepare for our death in the same way that we pray for Christ's return: by living in repentance and faith, by storing up oil in reserve by Christ's Word and Sacraments.

In our Epistle reading, St. Paul encourages us as we face the return of Jesus or the death of our bodies when he says, "God has not destined us for wrath, but to obtain salvation through our Lord Jesus Christ, who died for us so that whether we are awake or asleep we might live with him" (1 Thessalonians 5). Whether we are awake or asleep, whether our bodies are alive or dead, believers in Christ truly live with Him, for Jesus has promised, "I am the resurrection and the life. Whoever believes in me, though he die, yet shall he live, and everyone who lives and believes in me shall never die" (John 11:25-26).

In the parable, the voice cries out and says, "Wake up! The Bridegroom is coming!" Only at that point is it revealed who has enough oil and who doesn't. Likewise, Jesus says, "An hour is coming when all who are in the tombs will hear [the Son of Man's] voice and come out, those who have done good to the resurrection of life, and those who have done evil to the resurrection of judgment" (John 5:26-27). The foolish virgins are those who have done evil, those who have spent their oil reserves on unrighteousness, those who have quenched the Holy Spirit by unrepentance and unbelief. The wise virgins are those who have done good, who have been made righteous and holy by the Holy Spirit's work and have been given a superabundant supply of saving oil, those whose lamps do not go out.

Which are you? Our Lord says to all who believe and are baptized, "You are the light of the world" (Matthew 5:14). "You are all children of the light" (1 Thessalonians 5:5). And He promises that even if the lamp of your faith is burning dimly as you live under the trials and afflictions of this life, that He will not snuff it out but continue to provide more oil for you, for God promises that your Lord Jesus will never quench a smoldering wick "until He brings justice to victory" (Matthew 12:20), that is, victory over sin, death, and hell, for you. "Thanks be to God, who giveth us the victory through our Lord Jesus Christ!" Even so, Lord Jesus, come quickly! In the name of the Father, and of the Son and of the Holy Spirit. Amen.

And the peace of God which passes all understanding will keep your hearts and minds in Christ Jesus unto life everlasting. Amen.