Until it comes!

[AI translation] At the end of his account of the Lord's Supper, the apostle Paul writes: "Preach the Lord's death until he comes." What this means is that at this table we look both ways: backwards, to the Lord's death, His victory on Calvary, and forwards, to His return, when His victory on Calvary will be complete and final in the whole created world. The Lord's death and His coming: these are the two boundaries between which the whole Christian life lies.So the Christian life is based on the Lord's death, and its goal is His return and with it the consummation of His glorious reign. The right attitude of the Christian life, therefore, is to go before the returning Christ, on the basis of the redemption of Calvary, and to prepare for the happy meeting with Him. Communion is a condensed form of this attitude, a majestic royal banquet which, on the one hand, is a sign of the decisive victory already won on Calvary and, on the other, is the guarantee of the glorious return of Jesus Christ, which will bring the full development and completion of the victory on Calvary. The Christian life is therefore essentially a life of anticipation of Jesus' return, a life of waiting for and preparing for his coming.
Jesus Himself referred to His return in most of His teachings and parables. In the minutes after His ascension, the very first divine revelation that came to the disciples was that Jesus would come again as they had seen Him ascend into heaven. And the greatest and most sublime promise of Scripture refers to that time. Then, at His return, the dead will rise and the righteous will receive their reward. Then will His glorious kingdom begin, then will be fulfilled that for which we pray in the Lord's Prayer, "Thy kingdom come! Then will be the end of the reign of Satan, sin and death, then will be wiped away all tears, suffering, pain, weakness, then will begin the blessed peace and happiness of that great supper, the marriage of the Son of the King. Then, when Jesus comes! When the cry will be heard, "Behold, the Bridegroom is coming, come ye before him!
This is why we are Christians, in this hope we follow Jesus. It is this expectation that gives meaning to the narrow way we walk, the light of this glory yet to come illuminates even now this valley of the shadow of death in which we live! If this is not our hope, then our whole life is meaningless and purposeless! And surely our faith has also been misguided and weakened because we have not taken our bearings seriously, because we have lost sight of the goal: the return of Christ. So far has this expectation fallen from our souls that many today regard it as a sectarian infatuation, which the sober Christian man does not even bother to consider. Yet the whole Bible speaks of this expectation, and the promise of Christ's return is the culmination of the whole divine revelation. So the man who has found Christ in the Spirit cannot be anything but the man who is expecting Christ back in His visible glory!
Perhaps the reason why we Christians of today do not look forward to the return of our Lord as eagerly as the early Christians did is that in today's hurried world we see in the act of waiting an inactive, passive attitude. Well, there are two kinds of waiting. The first is a really extremely boring, idle waiting, like a bear waiting for spring, or a lazy man waiting for good luck, or someone standing at the end of a long queue waiting patiently or impatiently for his turn. Such waiting is indeed a waste of time, it could have been used for smarter things, too bad! But there is another kind of waiting, one filled with very urgent, feverish activity. Such as when a young mother is waiting for the birth of her baby. It is precisely this anticipation that gives her two hands a lot of urgent work, a lot of care and love to prepare many things for the arrival of the one she is waiting for. Such active waiting is also the case when a couple is waiting for their wedding. What a lot of happy excitement, preparation, arranging, planning, discussing, rushing around, fills this anticipation! What all has to be ready before the long-awaited day finally arrives!
Well, then, such is the joyful, hopeful, and urgently active waiting for the return of Christ! Jesus' parable of the ten virgins also speaks of Christ as the bridegroom and we, the Church, as His chosen bride. The relationship between Christ and His Church is now a relationship of betrothal. It is a very happy state, but not yet a state of complete happiness, the wedding is yet to come. The engagement is only a great promise, to be fulfilled when the bridegroom comes. Those who are serious about their engagement have no choice but to wait for the wedding. This state of expectation is an urgency for action and happy preparation, because it is not by mutual agreement between the bridegroom and the bride that the date of the wedding is set, as is usual for human weddings - that if everything cannot be prepared by the time the wedding is planned, it is postponed by a week or two at most - but by the heavenly bridegroom who makes a surprise appointment. All the bride knows is that her fiancé will come for her one day for sure, but she has no idea when. So he could arrive at any moment and the wedding will begin immediately. And if you're not ready by then, you'll miss it forever!
So in our basic verse, too, we are not talking about a silent waiting, but a waiting that is very much a feverish activity: 'Let your waist be girded and your loins be set on fire' (Lk 12,35). When their Lord left home, he told them that he would return, but not when. So now they cannot sleep, be idle, neglect their chores, because they are commanded to wait in full readiness for the master of the house to arrive. They must wait, with their mantles lighted, awake and ready to work, so that as soon as he comes and knocks, they may open the door for him. And not only they, but the whole house must be ready for the Lord's return, so that no rubbish or mess is found when he arrives. The Lord has commanded that when he comes, everyone and everything should be ready!
Our Lord also left almost two thousand years ago on Holy Thursday. And He also said He would come back, but He didn't say when. But He has left very definite instructions for His people to carry out until His return! And when He returns, He wants everything ready. Let us ask: What would happen to us now if suddenly the heavenly alarm were to sound, "Behold the bridegroom! (Mt 25:6) In what condition would he find you? Would you not be utterly bewildered? Would he not put you in a very uncomfortable situation? Would He find you there with girded waist and a lighted robe at His service, preparing yourself and your house for the great meeting? Would your wedding garment be ready for you to go into the wedding room with it immediately? Would He find you as one who has done all that you have had to do to this day at His bidding? For example, have you made peace not only with God, but also with your neighbor and your enemy? Have you considered that the Bridegroom should not celebrate with guests who are quarreling or at enmity with one another?
Have you then, for example, passed on the invitation to His wedding wherever you went among the people? Have you also invited them with sufficient warmth and urgency? You know, do you not, the will of Jesus that the bridal house should be completely full? Have you put away the idols of your life? For you know that He will not tolerate anyone or anything beside Him whom or what you would rather have than Him! The Bridegroom wants to possess the heart of His bride completely, undividedly. Wouldn't you find in you a lot of rubbish and mess, a big, messy mess, like an apartment that has just been uninvited and is embarrassingly surprised to find that it has arrived at the worst possible time?!
Do you feel how much activity we would be encouraged to take if we were truly waiting for Christ? If you took seriously the fact that the Bridegroom could come at any moment, you would suddenly awaken (the congregation would awaken) from the idle, spiritual dullness you were in! You would be stirred up to all the service you can do for His glory! Your prayer would be filled with a spiritual fervour you have never felt, your Bible-reading would become a living conversation with God, you would bring your sins one after another with feverish haste to the altar of cleansing, and you would feel the urgent need of making as many as possible aware of the joyful hope and preparation that is in you by your words and actions! You would not say, nor would you think any more, what someone once said: 'I have not time to wait for Christ! But you would feel the same: I have no time to wait for Christ! For what things He has said and says again and again in His Word that I have yet to do, that I must necessarily do until He comes! You should no longer be urged to do something yourself, to sacrifice a little time, money or service for the Lord's cause, for His Church, but to hasten to seize every opportunity while you can. Make haste to forgive and ask forgiveness, make haste to love and help, make haste to hear the Lord's message and pass it on, make haste to advance all the Lord's causes with money and work! Hasten to get it done while you still have time!
The return of Christ may not come while we are on earth. We may fall asleep, like the ten virgins in the parable, and be awakened from our sleep by the alarm that behold the Bridegroom is coming! Perhaps! But still the warning to be on our guard and ready for him at any moment is deadly serious! For we have only so long and so long a chance for this expectation of preparation and activity! And since none of us knows on which day, at which hour, our life on earth will end, this is why the watchful waiting, the waiting in preparation, is justified. It may be many thousands of years before the Bridegroom comes, but it may also be only a few months or days before your heart or my heart beats its last! To die is precisely to turn off from a world where millennia count for much, and to pass into a world where a thousand years are as little as the passing of yesterday, or the brief watch of a night. So to get ready for the wedding can only be done while you are here, while the time of earthly existence lasts!
"Let your waists therefore be girded and your loins kindled. And ye shall be like unto men that wait for their lord, when he cometh from the wedding feast, that as soon as he cometh and knocketh, they may open unto him. Blessed are the servants whom the master finds watching when he comes home."
Amen
Date: 25 July 1948.