Title: That Day and That Time
parable of the ten virgins
Jesus' parables are very familiar to those who hear them in that they are rooted in everyday life. Today's story, also called the so-called "parable of the ten virgins," is also a scene of a common marriage custom in Israeli society in the first century C.E. The groom comes to the bride's house in the middle of the night with his friends to greet the adults and take the bride to his house. At that time, the bride also accompanies her friends. Friends of the bride and groom march from the house of the bride to the house of the groom, dancing with torches. There must have been a lot of people from both families, especially the groom's house, who would bring the bride. It must have been a big festival in the town. The reason marriage, in which a man and a woman meet and start a family, is not an individual matter but is sublimated into a local festival is because marriage is the foundation that supports the neighborhood. The town cannot survive unless young men and women get married and have children.
This scene in today's text is slightly different from a normal wedding. If all went as planned, the bride's friends should know roughly when the groom is coming. However, today's text describes that the bridegroom came so late that all the virgins fell asleep. Some commentators explain that this scene took place at the groom's house. The groom came to the bride's house and it was late because he was discussing the problems to be solved with the elders of the bride's house, so the bride's friends are waiting at the groom's house first. Of course, the bride must have come later with the groom, not with friends.
Anyway, out of the ten virgins, five prepared a lamp and oil, and the other five had a lamp but no oil. Matthew describes the virgins who did not prepare oil as foolish. Why didn't these virgins prepare oil? I don't know if I thought that the groom's house would have oil, or if he didn't foresee that it would be so late, or if he wondered what would happen. It is not common for five to prepare oil and five not to prepare it, but it is not entirely unlikely. Both the wise virgins and the foolish virgins slept and fell asleep. In front of sleep, it seems that no matter how wise the virgins were, they could not help it.
Up to this point, the story flows flat, but now it progresses steeply. A message came in the middle of the night that the groom was coming People who were tired of waiting for the groom had to move in a hurry to hold the feast. The most important preparation is to light a torch, play an instrument, and dance. The foolish virgins asked the wise virgins to share the oil. How would the wise virgins react? “If we share what we have, it will be insufficient for us and for you, so it would be better for you to go to a store and buy what you need” (verse 9). Such an answer may sound too cold-hearted, but it is a just and realistic judgment for a feast. If you divide the oil in half according to the request of the foolish virgins, eventually the fire that should light the wedding banquet will be extinguished in the middle.
The foolish virgins went out to buy oil, while the bridegroom arrived. The five virgins who were waiting now light the fire and start the feast, but when the five virgins who had gone out to buy oil returned, the door was already locked. I don't know why the door was locked. We do not know exactly whether the custom at that time was the way it was, or whether it was set up to teach this parable in a didactic way. In any case, in front of this situation, it is said that the foolish virgins begged to open the door. They begged once to their friends and once to the groom. Then the bridegroom answered: “Listen clearly, I do not know who you are” (verse 12). Matthew concludes the parable by explaining that the bridegroom has turned away from the foolish virgins. “No one knows that day or hour. So stay awake always” (verse 13).
time you don't know
Early Christians must have read this parable and knew what it meant. The bridegroom here is Jesus. The time when the bridegroom, Jesus, was coming to them was passing. They believed that Jesus would return while they were still alive. As Jesus' second coming was delayed, they began to panic. Could it be that Jesus is not coming? Could it be that we misunderstood what Jesus said? Could it be that our beliefs are false? To the early Christians who were in this situation, this parable of Jesus today must have come to us very realistically. Through the story of the virgins waiting for the bridegroom, they learned what attitude they should take in the face of the Second Coming of Jesus. The first answer is that no one knows about “that day and that hour”.
The time when the bridegroom comes is “that day and that hour.” The Bible and Christian theology describe this day and time as apocalyptic representations of Jesus' return, judgment, and end times. When is this day and time, and what is the event? Is this the time when Jesus of Nazareth, who lived in Judea for the age of thirty-three 2,000 years ago, comes back to this earth in this form? According to the Gospels of Luke and Acts, Jesus ascended into heaven on the clouds and will come again in this form. Does this mean that Jesus will come again in a cloud like that, and is that the day and time that today's text is talking about? The explanation that he ascended to heaven on the clouds or descended again in that form is only valid in the understanding of the world of people at that time. To them, the clouds and sky are a secret world. Such a secret world that they cannot touch is the place where Jesus ascended to heaven. That this very Jesus is coming again means that the mystery of such life will be fully known to us. The very moment when life becomes fully known is that day and that hour.
Now we are still living without knowing life. Is this a bit strange? You might think strangely, does it make sense that we, who live so passionately, do not know life? This is by no means strange. We eat, defecate, sleep, earn money, and fulfill ourselves every day, but we do not know what it is. Why don't you know? This is because our lives and this history are not just laid out like this, but continue to run toward the future. Let's take an example. Here is Yehee, who was only two months old now. But can we predict what Ye-hee will be like 50 years from now? Yehee's 50 years later is still hidden from us. If we do not know the Ye-hee 50 years from now, the Ye-hee we know now is only a partial Ye-hee. The world we experience today and ourselves is similar to Yehee, who still has a distant future. So it is not wrong to say that we do not know life.
But our lives are always completely dependent on what we can now ascertain. I think that we should live well right now, we should leave some achievements now, we should build a church, and we should do world missions. At most, I only think of history 100 years later. We are bound by the idea that our family must shine after 100 years and that Christianity must grow greatly. Although it is necessary in some ways to look forward to history 100 years from now, it is not much different from the thoughts of ordinary historians. Our Christian faith lives looking forward to the time when the absolute life that surpasses even that will be completed. We do not absolutize the life we are experiencing today. We do not settle for reality by improving these things. This does not mean that we entrust our faith to an ideological revolution. As we learn from today's text, which speaks of the day and hour of the Bridegroom's coming, awaits the day and hour when the Source of life intervenes beyond history. Then, true liberation and freedom will become reality. A life that is no longer thirsty and no longer dissatisfied is complete. This is the eschatological life.
Perhaps some will argue that such days and times are not realistic. The world literally means 'utopia', which means 'without a place'. It can be argued that it is best to live happily here and now rather than waiting for such a utopia. Those who want to live like that have no choice but to live like that. After all, life is a choice. If you are a person who believes that a perfect life is achieved through the second coming of Jesus, you can put your life on it, and those who do not believe in it are enough to simply live content with reality. Here Christians are those who believe that Jesus will come like the Bridegroom at a time we do not know, that is, the time is coming when life will be completed by the power of God and not by our own efforts.
stay awake
Those who are aware of these days and times are naturally tensed spiritually. This spiritual tension is the meaning of today's text, "Always be awake." However, the five foolish virgins did not take the oil seriously because they did not give much thought to what they had come for. That is, they were not spiritually tense. Isn't the reason the bride's friends gather at the groom's house to hold a feast by raising the torch and singing and dancing when the groom arrives? No matter how late it was, if they had clearly known that the groom was coming, they would not have forgotten that they had to prepare oil. But unfortunately, they were foolish women. Foolishness here does not mean simply being diligent or lazy, or intellectually superior or lacking. Foolish means that they did not accurately recognize their reason for being that they were the ones who had to wait for the groom.
Early Christians who read this story must have worried a lot about whether they too were living like these foolish virgins. In reality, they would have lost their eschatological awareness in the face of the delay in Jesus' second coming and simply focused on complacency.
It is not easy to keep the spiritual tension tight all the time in our daily life. Students, too, stay alert and study when an exam is just around the corner, but it is not common to experience spiritual tension as if the mind is usually relaxed. That is why many Christians lead a very dry life of faith. Just as the sun has risen today, we live with a vague conviction that tomorrow will be the same. But strictly speaking, there is a very high chance that the sun will not rise tomorrow. There is no need to explain this possibility here. Even if that possibility is very low, it is absolutely important if it is directly related to the very basis of our existence. Unlike those who live without spiritual tension, we have another extreme. They end up giving up real life and history by frantically understanding the day and time.