I had intended to get to Chicago for a part of this weekend, but it didn't work out. Had I gone, I would have attended my nephew's Bobcat scout award ceremony. Even though I didn't make it, it still reminded me of different things in Boy Scouts. One of them is the motto, "Be Prepared." I still live by it. I'm always prepared for just about anything. In fact, whatever you need, I bet it's right there on the top of my desk.

Seriously. It's a good thing to be "prepared." I guess that's why we as a nation are in the financial shape we are in. We weren't prepared. I don't know how it is going to end. I'm not quite sure when it really started, but I know it has started, and I'm afraid we didn't know it was coming. We didn't think about what was coming.

Is that going to happen with Jesus' return? Are we going to be caught in the same way, unprepared?

In the past, I have said because of Jesus we are prepared, and I still wouldn't deny that. Because of Jesus, you are fully prepared. You have been washed in His blood, and made righteous. Your baptism has given you all He has gained, all you could ever need. As a result, you are prepared. Jesus can come at any moment, and because He has made you His, you are ready.

We could say, "O.K. We're ready Jesus. Come now. We have never been more ready than when we first came out of the font. With our little heads dripping with water, we were ready for you to come. We are seen as your pure, sinless, children, and we could not ask for more."

Let me ask you. How much more could you be ready for the judgment? You can't. You've heard me say it before, and I'll say it again-as corny as it may be: "It's never better than when you're wetter." You can't be any better prepared than you were when you were baptized, and that should go for now. As you have already been baptized, and you hold to God's claim made on you in your baptism in faith, then you are ready.

Do you realize there could be no better news in the world, than that? God is your friend. Your salvation is secure. When Christ returns you have nothing to fear.

But the story of the 10 bridesmaids gives us a little more to think about. In fact, it relates to that idea of the faith that says, "I've been baptized. If it were not for God's gracious claim on me through it, I would be lost, but instead I am His child."

Ten bridesmaids, virgins, waiting for the groom, the wedding party. Not an uncommon scene in those days. The couple is already engaged. The groom goes off to prepare a home for his bride and now the time has come for him to come get her.

The word on the streets is that he is on his way, but the grapevine breaks down at this point. The gossiping villagers aren't able to get this intel. How badly they would like to know when, but the groom had made it clear no one was going to know exactly when he is coming. His bride is eager, because she longs to live the rest of her life with her beloved, but she must wait. What the people would do to know when, but they have to learn to be patient because they have no choice.

Yes, He finally comes. He comes, but half are no longer ready. Their oil has run out.

Oil. Its scarcity was a problem even back in those days. Actually, it wasn't so scarce. I guess it really isn't that scarce now. But it's a matter of availability. Olive oil for lamps abounded. That was no problem, but you don't buy oil in the middle of the night. Nobody is selling it then. For us, it's a matter of its cost. Since money seems to be scarce, so is our ability to buy oil, or in its refined state, gasoline.

Oil to us means energy, particularly gasoline. Oil for them meant energy, but light. But the energy of oil in most other places in the Bible means a different kind of energy-I suppose you could say the energy of the Holy Spirit. Whenever we see oil, we see anointing. Anointing prophets, priests and kings. And that anointing pointed to the Anointed One the Christ, and what He was anointed with-you guessed it, the Holy Spirit.

So, you could say, the foolish virgin bridesmaids ran out of the Holy Spirit-particularly the work of the Holy Spirit, the faith the Holy Spirit creates and maintains. That sounds like a terrible situation. You might even wonder how that happens.

Let's go back to the oil in the lamps again. I remember learning way back in Sunday School, "This little Gospel light of mine." It's based on Matt 5, "If you light a lamp, you don't put it under a basket, but on a stand, and it gives light to all in the house." I loved singing that song because we got to do all the gestures. Unfortunately, it had little Bobby (and yes, I was Bobby in those days) focusing on all he was supposed to do. "I was going to let it shine. I wasn't going to let Satan blow it out. I was going to shine it all around the neighborhood." It never even said what the Gospel was.

It was my resolve. It was what I was going to do. Little Bobby's lamp was going to be burning for all to see. Yessir, he was going to let his light shine so that others could see his good works and glorify his Father who is in heaven. One problem, well, actually two. First, he didn't do such a good job of shining his light. He only sang about it, and even singing about it his Gospel light didn't shine too well; that's another story. But two, if that lamp had been burning brightly, it would have been using up oil.

Now, here's the basic problem. The oil would need to be replenished. Are you starting to see? Lamps shining, means oil burning. And oil burning means oil that will eventually need to be replaced. That was what had been happening to those bridesmaids, and now they were out of oil So, whether these bridesmaids had been burning their oil through the night or had put them out right before they feel asleep, the point is they had been burning them, now it was time to refill them, and the foolish ones didn't have anything left.

So, let's say these bridesmaids had been burning their oil as they waited for the bridegroom to come. That would be us. We are burning oil waiting for the bridegroom, Jesus, to come back. We are burning oil as we are lights to the world, as we do good deeds for our neighbor, serving him in whatever is our calling. We are burning oil as we serve our children, our spouse, our friends, our customers, our congregation. All throughout this week hopefully, we have been letting our lights shine; we have been burning oil. That's a good thing.

We have been giving all week, or at least, as a Christian this would be our goal. As a Christian, we want our whole life to be consumed in service to others. This isn't to say our whole life this past week was consumed in service. Far from it! Because we are sinners, our lives are rarely all about service to others; quite often it is about just ourselves. We stick that lamp under the bushel basket, that bushel basket we said would never have a lamp under it. As Christians, we hate this.

Do you know what I'm talking about? This is where we see our sin. We see it when we think only about ourselves, when we excuse ourselves for hurting or neglecting other people. We recognize we are not doing what we know we should.

Now, if that is not even your desire, or your desire to desire, this is bad. Your oil has already run out. When the oil is gone, faith is gone. That's what happened to those bridesmaids.

And it wasn't like they weren't religious. In a different passage Jesus tells almost the same story without the parable. "Not everyone who says to me, 'Lord, Lord' will enter the kingdom of heaven. On that day many will say to me, 'Lord, Lord, did we not prophesy in your name, and cast out demons in your name, and do mighty works in your name?' And then I will declare to them, 'I never knew you; depart from me you workers of lawlessness.'" They are standing there pounding on the doors that are shut tight. They are shouting, crying, pleading but the cries fall on deaf ears. The time has passed. They had no oil, and now it is too late.

I don't know where you stand. I can't know. But you do know, and it's a good thing you are here this morning, hearing this sermon, and receiving God's gracious gifts. It's a good thing you are sitting in these pews and hearing these words, because these are not merely words. They are not simply information or data. They are not simply words of encouragement to get you to do the right thing or the thing you want to do or you know you should do. They are power. They are spirit and they are life. And that spirit and life is being poured into your ears, like oil poured into a lamp.

The bridesmaids ran out of oil because they stopped listening. They didn't think they needed what was being given to them. They thought the life of a waiting bridesmaid was to be busy doing things. They didn't stop to see what they were, that they were sinners.

The essence of Christian worship is receiving God's gifts of life, but they didn't see their need for these gifts. They thought they were fine on their own. They were busy giving out, but not taking in. They were busy shining their lights, or so they thought, but faith was missing, the faith which receives. Instead, they had said, "I've got enough Jesus. Thank you."

Isn't that a dangerous statement for anyone? The Lord through the Spirit has so much Jesus to give. He gives Jesus in the Divine Service through the Word that is spoken and through the Word that is eaten.

It is foolish to say, "No thanks, I've got enough Jesus." Isn't that spurning His gifts? Could we ever have enough? What happens when we think we have enough? We stop being open to Him. We don't let him open the fuel cap. The oil never goes in. Hence, we run out. We become the foolish bridesmaids, the ones without faith.

The Holy Spirit convicts us of guilt, of our need for Jesus, and then fills us, but even when we are being filled, we would not say, "That should do for a while." No, that is the paradox. The more He fills us, the more we want, the more we see we need Him.

That was the difference between the foolish bridesmaids and the wise ones. The foolish ones lacked faith. They said to the Holy Spirit, "I don't need Jesus and His gifts." They ran out of oil. The wise ones, on the other hand, saw their need for Jesus. "Give me all the Jesus you can." And they had oil to burn.

The great day of judgment is coming, but perhaps the smaller one is now, and faces us now. By God's gracious claim, you have already been made His children. By His gracious act, He is pouring oil into you. Only someone who was foolish would prevent it from going in, but that may well be happening.

But for those of you who recognize your need for the oil, confessing your need for Jesus, then it's already full. And when Jesus comes back, your lamp will be burning brightly. He won't catch you sleeping, unprepared. Instead, He will catch you waiting and like a bride going to meet her bridegroom, this will be the joyous day you had always dreamed it would be.

AMEN