Live ready
by Jim Strelan
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The virgins who were ready went in with him … (Matthew 25:10b).
Read Matthew 25:1–13
Over the years, someone or another has proclaimed certainty about the day Christ will return. And faithful followers have sold their possessions (no need for them) and gathered on a hilltop, singing hymns and praying as they waited. They wanted to be ready.
Is that what being ready means? The bridesmaids in this parable wanted to be ready, and some prepared themselves, while others didn’t. They knew the bridegroom was coming, but they didn’t know exactly when. When he did come – at a most unexpected time, midnight – they were surprised. Some had their lamps lit and brought extra oil. Some didn’t. Some ready, some not.
In the following verses of Matthew 25, we first have the parable of the man who entrusts his property to his servants. When he returns, he wants to know what they did with what they were given. And then we have the account of the final judgement when some are directed to the right and some to the left. And the criteria? How did you respond to the one in need: the hungry, the thirsty, the stranger, the one short of clothes, the sick, the prisoner? Those who responded with love and care weren’t aware that, by doing so, they were serving Jesus. They just did it. It was their lifestyle and pattern of behaving.
A line attributed to Martin Luther (although the attribution is unproven) goes something like this: ‘Even if I knew that tomorrow the world would go to pieces, I would still plant my apple tree.’ In other words, he would go about his day-to-day activities because he knew that he and the world were in God’s hands.
So maybe being ready means ‘living ready’. Not like those gathered on the hilltop with particular actions on a particular day, but living ready, trusting in God’s ongoing goodness. Wisely using the gifts given to us. Meeting the needs of those around us as best we can because that’s just what God’s people do. Living ready.
Lord, help me live each day so that, no matter when you return, I am ready, trusting in your goodness, aware of your presence, focused outward rather than inward. And so, I pray with great calmness: come, Lord Jesus. Amen.
Jim is a retired pastor living with his wife Ruth in Deception Bay, Queensland. He spends his retirement making space to add more Lions’ premiership posters to the six (3+3) he already has on his garage wall.
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