A newly married sailor was informed by the navy that he was going to be stationed for a year a long way from home on a remote island in the Pacific. A few days after he got there he really began to miss his new wife, so he wrote a letter.
‘My love’ he wrote, ‘we are going to be apart for a very long time. Already I am missing you and there’s not much to do here in the evenings. Besides that, I have to tell you that we’re constantly surrounded by young attractive native girls. Do you think I should get a hobby of some kind so I will not be tempted?’
So his wife sent him back a harmonica saying, ‘That’s a good idea, to avoid any possibility of you straying, I think you should learn to play this’... Eventually his tour of duty came to an end and he rushed back to his wife. ‘Darling’ he said, ‘I can’t wait to see you for a cuddle !’
Before allowing him a cuddle or certainly a kiss, she said, ‘First show me whether you learnt the harmonica !’
Waiting around for something can be really difficult – how many of us have, at some time or another, got distracted when we were waiting for something. There are many people who’ve had the experience of a long train journey and waiting for the destination, and then dozing off to sleep, and ending up missing the stop.
Distractions come in all kinds of ways. Tonight’s gospel reading (Matthew 25:1-13) is a warning against distractions ! The bridesmaids take their lamps and go to meet the bridegroom – Jesus was using a common wedding story here – but he goes on to say that 5 of the bridesmaids were wise and 5 foolish. When the bridegroom was delayed they became drowsy – some had taken spare oil, some hadn’t and when the bridegroom arrived those who had spare oil could fill their lamps, but those who hadn’t were left in the dark, and they missed the wedding banquet.
The Jewish people of today are waiting – I thought I’d told everybody about the song ‘When a child is born’, a great favourite at Christmas – I’ve bored lots of people with the fact that this is not a Christmas song at all, but actually I found a couple of people this week that I hadn’t mentioned it to, so just to close the gap, I’ll say again this is not a Christmas song at all – in fact it’s quite the opposite.
It speaks of a little child being born, a child that brings peace, but later in the song it says that ‘it’s all a dream, an illusion now – it must come true, sometime soon somehow’. It is saying that the world is still waiting for the birth of the Saviour. At a bible study recently we were discussing this waiting of the Jewish people and someone said that ‘someone should tell them that the Saviour has already come’. Simplistic, but so accurate !
We’re not waiting – we know Jesus and we know he has come for each one of us. Like the bridesmaids in the story we are part of the way there, but like them we sometimes have to ask ourselves if we are actually ready. We may not be waiting but are we ready ?
In the early Church it was thought that Jesus would make his promised reappearance very quickly but that wasn’t the plan. Some grew disillusioned with waiting, some turned their backs on him, some just simply became distracted.
And tonight I think we can see this as a warning for us all…
There are people who are still waiting – people who have failed to experience the living God in their lives, people who are still searching for something, even though they might now know what, people who are waiting for what has been called their ‘God shaped hole’ to be filled.
We can be the people who are pointing them to God and we do that through our words and our actions. The reading from the prophet Amos (5:18-24) spoke of a need to practice faith, not just follow it. He spoke of the need to live out principles of justice for everyone, or their worship and their sacrifices would be meaningless.
And that message is still true today. We must live out our faith, not just in living good lives, important though that is, but in serving God with our mouths as well as our hands !
And then there are people who have met Jesus, who know his love and his power, who have been touched by his compassion and grace, but it seems a long time ago. All of us get times when we’re spiritually a little bit weak, times when we drift – I think it’s just a natural part of faith and life, but staying warm, staying ready is something we all need to do.
God is a living God who is constantly speaking to us and seeking to use us, and we must be ready. If we’re not listening we will never hear his call… Like the bridesmaids, if we’re not ready, then we will face missing the banquet.
Distractions come in many different forms. It may have been that following a Christian conversion there was great excitement but that excitement has died down and we’ve gone into a routine. It may be that we have let things get in the way of our relationship with God – perhaps it’s work or a social activity, perhaps a relationship with someone, perhaps a problem or a worry that we have.
Anything that stops us from being close to God needs to be removed, and we must seek God’s help to recognise any such thing, and to remove it. Nothing must be allowed to separate us from God or from sharing his message with others.
This parable that Jesus tells is rightly often used to remind us that Jesus has said he will come again, and when he does every person will be judged and every person must be ready for that judgement because we don’t know when it will come -at every Communion service we look forward to that day as we say ‘Christ has died, Christ is risen, Christ will come in glory’.
Whenever Jesus comes we must be ready – we can’t plan a day or an hour, we must be ready now. And that means telling others to be prepared, but also ensuring that we are ready, that we are living out the life and nature of Christ through our lives.
Amos touches on the theme of light and darkness in the Old Testament reading – it’s a theme that we will think about again during advent, but as Christians we are called to be people of light always. We may have met Jesus, we may know his saving power, and in that way we are not waiting… but not waiting doesn’t mean we’re ready and that is the question this reading poses, ‘when the Lord comes are we ready to meet him ?’ AMEN
‘My love’ he wrote, ‘we are going to be apart for a very long time. Already I am missing you and there’s not much to do here in the evenings. Besides that, I have to tell you that we’re constantly surrounded by young attractive native girls. Do you think I should get a hobby of some kind so I will not be tempted?’
So his wife sent him back a harmonica saying, ‘That’s a good idea, to avoid any possibility of you straying, I think you should learn to play this’... Eventually his tour of duty came to an end and he rushed back to his wife. ‘Darling’ he said, ‘I can’t wait to see you for a cuddle !’
Before allowing him a cuddle or certainly a kiss, she said, ‘First show me whether you learnt the harmonica !’
Waiting around for something can be really difficult – how many of us have, at some time or another, got distracted when we were waiting for something. There are many people who’ve had the experience of a long train journey and waiting for the destination, and then dozing off to sleep, and ending up missing the stop.
Distractions come in all kinds of ways. Tonight’s gospel reading (Matthew 25:1-13) is a warning against distractions ! The bridesmaids take their lamps and go to meet the bridegroom – Jesus was using a common wedding story here – but he goes on to say that 5 of the bridesmaids were wise and 5 foolish. When the bridegroom was delayed they became drowsy – some had taken spare oil, some hadn’t and when the bridegroom arrived those who had spare oil could fill their lamps, but those who hadn’t were left in the dark, and they missed the wedding banquet.
The Jewish people of today are waiting – I thought I’d told everybody about the song ‘When a child is born’, a great favourite at Christmas – I’ve bored lots of people with the fact that this is not a Christmas song at all, but actually I found a couple of people this week that I hadn’t mentioned it to, so just to close the gap, I’ll say again this is not a Christmas song at all – in fact it’s quite the opposite.
It speaks of a little child being born, a child that brings peace, but later in the song it says that ‘it’s all a dream, an illusion now – it must come true, sometime soon somehow’. It is saying that the world is still waiting for the birth of the Saviour. At a bible study recently we were discussing this waiting of the Jewish people and someone said that ‘someone should tell them that the Saviour has already come’. Simplistic, but so accurate !
We’re not waiting – we know Jesus and we know he has come for each one of us. Like the bridesmaids in the story we are part of the way there, but like them we sometimes have to ask ourselves if we are actually ready. We may not be waiting but are we ready ?
In the early Church it was thought that Jesus would make his promised reappearance very quickly but that wasn’t the plan. Some grew disillusioned with waiting, some turned their backs on him, some just simply became distracted.
And tonight I think we can see this as a warning for us all…
There are people who are still waiting – people who have failed to experience the living God in their lives, people who are still searching for something, even though they might now know what, people who are waiting for what has been called their ‘God shaped hole’ to be filled.
We can be the people who are pointing them to God and we do that through our words and our actions. The reading from the prophet Amos (5:18-24) spoke of a need to practice faith, not just follow it. He spoke of the need to live out principles of justice for everyone, or their worship and their sacrifices would be meaningless.
And that message is still true today. We must live out our faith, not just in living good lives, important though that is, but in serving God with our mouths as well as our hands !
And then there are people who have met Jesus, who know his love and his power, who have been touched by his compassion and grace, but it seems a long time ago. All of us get times when we’re spiritually a little bit weak, times when we drift – I think it’s just a natural part of faith and life, but staying warm, staying ready is something we all need to do.
God is a living God who is constantly speaking to us and seeking to use us, and we must be ready. If we’re not listening we will never hear his call… Like the bridesmaids, if we’re not ready, then we will face missing the banquet.
Distractions come in many different forms. It may have been that following a Christian conversion there was great excitement but that excitement has died down and we’ve gone into a routine. It may be that we have let things get in the way of our relationship with God – perhaps it’s work or a social activity, perhaps a relationship with someone, perhaps a problem or a worry that we have.
Anything that stops us from being close to God needs to be removed, and we must seek God’s help to recognise any such thing, and to remove it. Nothing must be allowed to separate us from God or from sharing his message with others.
This parable that Jesus tells is rightly often used to remind us that Jesus has said he will come again, and when he does every person will be judged and every person must be ready for that judgement because we don’t know when it will come -at every Communion service we look forward to that day as we say ‘Christ has died, Christ is risen, Christ will come in glory’.
Whenever Jesus comes we must be ready – we can’t plan a day or an hour, we must be ready now. And that means telling others to be prepared, but also ensuring that we are ready, that we are living out the life and nature of Christ through our lives.
Amos touches on the theme of light and darkness in the Old Testament reading – it’s a theme that we will think about again during advent, but as Christians we are called to be people of light always. We may have met Jesus, we may know his saving power, and in that way we are not waiting… but not waiting doesn’t mean we’re ready and that is the question this reading poses, ‘when the Lord comes are we ready to meet him ?’ AMEN
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