Have you ever wanted something to happen so bad but when it didn’t happen, you almost became depressed? It was as if life was against you and the result was the nothing you started with. Many look at life as the great defeat with lost hopes and dreams and even losing people they loved whether through death or the ending of a relationship. It’s enough to destroy a person if the person allows life to do such a thing to them.
The Bible declares through the Gospel that there is a greater dream that is available for every person. The idea of life after death, a good one, where no matter what happens in this life, the hope Christians hold to is one where when this life completely disappoints us, whether in success or failure, there is something greater coming.
What we read in Matthew 25 is that there is going to be a time of waiting. We are called to live life now, not for ourselves, but for Christ. But in that living, we are waiting for the renewal of all things.
The question is: What does it mean for a Christian to faithfully wait for Christ? Three major answers come to mind:
Holding to faith: Knowing that faith is the lifeblood of the believer. In the context of Matthew 25, the bridegroom is not yet seen, but faith becomes the confidence that we will see Jesus.
Holding to hope: Hope is learning to see what is in us before we see what is around us. At some point or at multiple points in our life what is around us will attempt to rob our hope.
Staying true: As we look at the virgins in this chapter, the world around us will tempt us from our relationship with God. We have got to stay true to Christ while tempted not to.
These are practical means by which we wait, holding in faith to the return of Jesus. Waiting in a Christian sense is far from sitting idle and doing nothing. It is living out the Christian life and staying true to the one who has saved us.
Dreams in this life may come and go, but there are things that cannot be taken from you as we look to Christ. In our context today, faithfulness and hope are things you cannot be robbed of. You can only give them away.
I could never tell you for sure what you will face in your life, but I can tell you for sure that God loves you, Jesus is returning and in the end, no matter what you lose here, what you have in the end is all you will ever need or want if you are in Christ… so we wait.
