AWAITING THE BRIDEGROOM
A Sermon by Rev. Daniel W. Goodenough
"Now five of them were wise and five were foolish. Those who
were foolish took their lamps and took no oil with them, but
the wise took oil in their vessels with their lamps. But while
the bridegroom was delayed they all became drowsy and slept"
(Matt. 25:2-5).
The Lord told three parables during His last week on
earth to explain judgment after death. The parables of the ten
virgins, of the talents, and of the sheep and goats all teach
that the kingdom of the heavens will open to those who live
lives of good will toward others, but those who neglect others
and care mainly about themselves will find after death that
the Lord does not know them. The literal sense shows plainly
that we should make ourselves ready by developing our abili-
ties wisely and by living for others. If we watch for the
coming Bridegroom by cultivating genuine love and wisdom, our
deaths will be invitations to live in the land of the Lord.
The spiritual sense revealed in the Writings of Sweden-
borg deepens the meaning of these parables and sheds new light
on some difficulties in the letter. For instance, "I do not
know you," the bridegroom said to the five foolish virgins.
The foolish virgins represent people who have developed their
faith (the empty lamps) but have not love (the oil) for oth-
ers. Of course the Lord (the Bridegroom) knows everyone from
inmost to outmost, but the fool who lives for himself, without
the oil of love for others, cannot know the Lord, and it
appears that it's the Lord who doesn't know him.
In the spiritual sense "midnight" means transition to the
next life, where everyone is given a life consistent with what
he has become on this earth. "Behold, the bridegroom is
coming; go out to meet him." If we have lived useful and
loving lives for the sake of others, we will be graced with
oil of love in abundance for our lamps, and like the five wise
virgins we will eagerly respond to the Lord and enter His
wedding feast; for heaven is an eternal marriage of love for
others joined with wisdom. It is the oil in their lamps,
meaning love joined with faith, that makes the five wise
virgins welcome at the midnight wedding. "In the spiritual
world . . . the question that is asked is not, `What was your
faith, or what was your doctrine?' but, `What was the nature
of your life?'" (DP 101:3).
Love, the supreme lesson of life, must be learned here on
earth, and those who choose to love others less than their own
wealth, power and happiness cannot change their essential
character at the midnight of death. Our inner ruling love, our
fundamental motivation, remains unchanged after death, and
this is why the five foolish virgins could not come to the
weddingþyou can't become a totally different person after
death any more than you can buy good oil after midnight. After
death people don't want to change their basic character, but
they grow along the lines they have chosen on earth.
In such ways does the spiritual sense explain the Lord's
meaning in His parable about judgment, and give answers to
fundamental questions of life. The question of our ultimate
purpose and destiny remains the basic human issue, however a
society in pursuit of material satisfaction may paper it over
by producing ever finer material benefits.
The spiritual sense also gives a more immediate meaning
to the parable, relating more to our changing spiritual states
on earth than to life beyond the grave. In this sense midnight
refers to states of total devastation, when the thick darkness
in our minds is most dense (see AC 7776). This midnight of
"mere falsity" we may not recognize as darkness, because
spiritual obscurity does not necessarily coincide with times
of natural desolation. But recognized or not, midnight is a
time of no spiritual light, when we wait for the Lord to come
to us and begin the wedding feast. The wedding feast again is
the happy union of love and wisdom, a heavenly state of love
for our Lord and for our neighbor, joined with the clear light
of wisdom. Though in spiritual darkness, we want to be in-
spired by love and to see a clear vision of truth, and we wait
for the Lord to come to us. In this context the bridegroom
means good, or love, from the Lord (see AC 9182:10,11); we
need to be ready to respond to good loves that the Lord wants
to give us, so that He can bring us out of spiritual darkness
to the wedding feast of love united with wisdom.
But the Lord's arrival seems long delayed, and the
question is whether we will be like the wise virgins or the
foolish ones. As we await the Lord's arrival in good loves,
will we foolishly trust in empty lamps of faith, or will we
fill our vessels of faith with love by living according to the
Lord's commands? The wise virgins mean those who live by their
faith, even in darkness, while the foolish virgins mean those
who have faith but do not live as the Lord teaches. Now we
know faith without love doesn't save, but in darkness it is
appealing to imagine that our faith in the most wonderful
truths ever revealed to mankind will bring us to the wedding
feast. Will not ideals formed from the Lord's own heavenly
doctrine open heaven to us? Only if we live by them, even in
darkness. "Those not in good cannot be taught by the Word, but
can only be confirmed in" what they have learned from infancy
(AC 8694). The parable of the ten virgins is primarily a
warning against faith without love, and a plea to live loving
lives by obeying the Lord.
It is interesting that as the night deepens, both the
wise and the foolish virgins grow drowsy at the bridegroom's
delay and fall asleep. Drowsiness and sleep mean doubt,
questioning, skepticism (see AC 4638). We should expect doubts
during the night of spiritual obscurity. The foolish doubt
with negation in their hearts, while the wise in their doubts
wait on the Lord for future answers, and in the meantime they
acquire the oil of love by continuing to live well; they
reject evils as sins against God and benefit the neighbor in
acts of good will. Though their minds are obscure, their lives
remain faithful to Divine truths. We read: "Action comes
first; the person's willing follows. For what a person does
from the understanding he at length does from the will, and
finally puts it on as a habit; and it is then introduced into
his rational or internal man. And once it has been introduced,
truth is no longer what motivates him when he does a good
action, but good. For now he begins to feel within it some-
thing of blessedness and, so to speak, of heaven. This remains
with him after death, and by means of it the Lord raises him
up to heaven" (AC 4353e). The marriage feast begins when good
willing comes into our hearts, but meanwhile in the darkness
we should act according to the truths we understand and so
fill our lamps with oil.
A virgin means the affection for truth. A wise virgin, or
a genuine love of the truth, does not mean just knowing and
understanding true doctrine and ideals, but it means our lives
are in the truths, and it means we use truths to make our
daily decisions and guide the choices we are continually faced
with. Love of the truth means holding fast to the truth in our
living even in darkness, when pressures mount to weaken and
yield, when the siren songs of other joys touch our feelings.
Our pursuit of truth has to do with what principles we live
our lives from in different states. Those represented by the
foolish virgins understand and talk well about truth and good,
but the wise virgins mean people who also will and do what is
true and good (see TCR 719:3).
During spiritual darkness we are challenged in countless
ways to give up on the truth. The attraction of selfish
rewards, our concern for popularity, old dormant prejudices,
personal appeals, and compelling worldly arguments all vie to
control how we live. But the measure of our oil is how
steadfastly we conform our lives to what we know are the
Lord's truths. Faith alone tells us that truth is essentially
a matter of understanding, but really truth is in us only if
it directs our daily decisions. This is why in the next life
truths stay with us only so far as they have become our
principles of living, the reasons for our choices. The truths
we just understand and talk about are empty lamps.
It is especially as night deepens and the Lord delays
that we grow spiritually drowsy and sleepy, with doubts about
what principles should govern our acts, what ideas should
light our way. And this is when we are likely to pursue alien
ideasþideas which can harmonize to some extent with the
heavenly doctrines, but which if followed as our main guides
lead away from the wedding feast. If the truths of the Lord's
Word are to remain as our solid rock, they should form the
basic structure of our thought and not just be used to support
other leading ideas we may have absorbed from popular culture.
During the night of natural life do we think from and act from
the Lord's teachings, or do we just think and talk about them?
Three examples may illustrate.
The doctrine of the fall of man, though not especially
prominent among the earliest Christians, came to dominate the
Christian view of humanity. Original sin became a controlling
doctrine and has produced untold gloom and guilt, especially
in some religious traditions. Among many New Church people too
emphasis on the fall of mankind has become a central and
leading concept beyond all proportion to the brief treatments
given it in the Writings of Swedenborg. The Writings say
little about an original, single fall. Though they describe
the fall of the Most Ancient Church, they don't even tell us
plainly when evil first began; as for evil today, they explain
instead tendencies to evil we each inherit from direct
ancestors. More than a primitive fall they emphasize the
flood, through which will and understanding were separated so
that we may be reborn through conscience, a new will in the
understanding. And especially the Writings stress freedom and
rationality, which the Lord preserves in us so that whatever
our heredity and environment, means can be found to lead us
toward Him.
The fall-of-man idea is not untrue, and in dark states we
may want to adopt it as a central guide to life. It does seem
to explain why mankind and we ourselves are beset with evils
and problems. But as a central philosophy of life it obscures
the truths about the freedom and rationality we need in order
to change ourselves, and instead it works to hold us in
anxiety and guilt. The doctrine of the fall of mankind is not
false, but in the "night" the guides we need are the Lord's
doctrines in their true proportions, not an idea here or there
out of balance. Our ruling concept about humanity should not
be the fall, but freedom and rationality. The concepts we
choose as our guiding thoughts will make a profound difference
in how we feel about the nature of other people, about our own
states, and about the meaning of life.
Much the same applies to the example of self-esteem,
which in recent years has been accepted as a crucial ingredi-
ent of effective living. The Writings present a doctrine about
the love of self that does harmonize with much that psychology
tells us about good self-esteem: love of self is in us by
creation and is not evil if it is subordinated to love to the
Lord and the neighbor (see TCR 395, 403-405). True enough. But
to what extent should the pursuit of self-esteem be a central
goal of our lives? This is a profound and serious question for
us today. And what means are we going to use to try to answer
the question? What books are we going to read, whom are we
going to trust, what ideas will we allow to direct our
thoughts and our life decisions? Where we seek our light and
inspiration will greatly affect our lives and our supply of
oil. It is especially as the midnight of deep spiritual
darkness approachesþas we await a Lord who seems distant, as
we spiritually slumberþthat we need to be faithful to His
truths and see them in full and true proportion to each other.
A third example is seeking forgiveness. Once again,
forgiveness by the Lord, like the fall and good self-love, is
clearly taught in the Word. The New Testament and the Writings
show plainly that the Lord forgives the sins of allþ"Father,
forgive them for they know not what they do" (Luke 23:34)þ
although sinners who remain in evil refuse His forgiveness and
do not accept His mercy. (See AC 9014:3, TCR 539, 409 etc.)
Liberty includes the freedom to reject another's mercy.
But how central in our lives should be the desire for His
forgiveness? The Old Testament, the New Testament and the
Writings put considerably greater emphasis on living as we
should, and treat forgiveness as the given that it is. When
spiritually drowsy, we may see the Lord's forgiveness as the
most crucial issue of all. Yet to the woman taken in adultery
þand she had done something really wrongþHe simply said,
"Neither do I pass sentence on you; go and sin no more" (John
8:11). The Writings even say that while in repenting we should
pray for the Lord's power and mercy and confess our sins to
Him, we need not pray for their forgiveness because He has
already forgiven them. The Writings say that. He never
appropriates evil to anyone, and asks only that we not appro-
priate it to ourselves by doing it (see TCR 539).
What emphasis do we give to our desire to be forgiven?
Which seems more important, forgiveness, repentance, or
regeneration? In spiritual sleep it is easy to separate these
and seek to be forgiven as if it were something in itself, as
if repentance and regeneration will come later, after we are
sure of forgiveness. But think: when in time Christians began
to pursue forgiveness as something in itself, they external-
ized it into mere forms and words. Forgiveness is one of those
things that if you seek it for itself, ironically it will
escape you, because we receive the Lord's mercy in how we
live. Forgiveness is always there to receive by our not
returning to the evils we have been forgiven; it's part of the
oil. But if in slumber we worry about forgiveness as important
in itself, we may turn away from the crucial life-choice
issues. Anxiety about being forgiven, though understandable,
is unpleasant and unhealthy because it misdirects us. Forgive-
ness is a key doctrine, but it needs to be held in its proper
place, especially at "night." May we hold closely to the
emphasis that the Word gives to forgiveness. As midnight
approaches we should focus more on what the Lord wants us to
do and not do than on what He does for us.
Waiting at night, without light, is not easy. The
pitfalls seem many, and doubts are to be expected. Yes, there
are different ways we can compromise the truth, various
imbalances that can confuse us and lead us far from the Lord's
way, the easy way. Other ways may promise a quick fix, but the
balanced way revealed in the Word is still the easiest, even
if it takes patience.
Though the night will sometimes put us to sleep, we need
not be afraid of its confusing darkness if we hold fast to two
truths: the bridegroom will come, in states on earth and when
the body dies. We don't know when but He will come. Second, we
make ourselves ready not by having a perfect faith but by
acquiring oil through a life of love, by holding fast to the
Lord's teachings in our decisions in life. The five foolish
virgins can be present with the Lord but not conjoined with
Him. They are like friends who talk with Him but without love
þpresent with Him yet separated, because only love conjoins
(see DP 91:2).
The principles we choose to live by are the ideals that
stay with us forever, and if they are from the Lord, our
living by them will give us lamps full of oil even while we
wait for the Lord in darkness and doubt. In fact, it is during
darkness and doubt that our most important choices are made
firm through persistence. If we persist during the night, joy
will be ours when the Bridegroom comes. And we will find that
we too will be married to the Lord, for He promises, "I will
betroth you to Me forever; yes, I will betroth you to Me in
justice and judgment, in lovingkindness and mercy. I will be-
troth you to Me in faithfulness, and you shall know the Lord"
(Hosea 2:19,20). "As the bridegroom rejoices over the bride,
so shall your God rejoice over you" (Isaiah 62:5). Amen.
Lessons: Matt. 25:1-13; TCR 199, 719 (selections)
Preached in Bryn Athyn July 8, 1990
* * * * * * *
True Christian Religion 199
That the Lord when in the world spoke by correspondences,
that is, when He spoke naturally He also spoke spiritually,
can be seen from His parables, in each word of which there is
a spiritual meaning. Take for example the parable of the ten
virgins . . . . That in all these particulars [of Matt. 25:1-
12] there is a spiritual sense and therefore a Divine holiness
no one sees except him who knows that the Word has a spiritual
sense and who knows what that sense is. In the spiritual sense
"the kingdom of the heavens" means heaven and the church; "the
bridegroom" means the Lord; "the wedding" means the marriage
of the Lord with heaven and the church . . . ; "the virgins"
mean those who constitute the church; "ten" means all; "five"
some portion; "lamps" things pertaining to faith; "oil,"
things pertaining to the good of love; "to sleep" and "to
arise" means man's life in the world, which is natural, and
his life after death, which is spiritual; "to buy" means to
procure for oneself; "going to those who sell and buying oil"
means to procure for oneself good of love from others after
death . . . .