When It Snows the Day After Palm Sunday

All four Gospels tell some version of the Palm Sunday scene.  Four chapters after Matthew’s version, Jesus tells us what to do between his first triumphal entry and his Second Coming.

There, in Matthew 25:1-13, Jesus presents a parable of ten bridesmaids getting ready for a wedding.  Some were prepared, some were not.  Spiritual maturity is our responsibility and requires regular maintenance.

Given all the  snow that’s still coming down here in Illinois this morning, let’s try this —

The Kingdom of Heaven will be like this.  

Ten people got the news that a big snow was coming, so they went to a convenience store.  

Five were wise and bought de-icer and windshield scrapers.  

Five were foolish and bought coffee and beef jerky.  All ten went to see a movie.

When they came out of the theater, there was much shouting on the parking lot.  

“Look!  It snowed!  And it is still snowing!  And what is even worse,

beneath the snow there is ice covering our cars!”

Then the five wise ones scraped and sprayed,

sprayed and scraped.  Their windshields were clear.

Then the five foolish ones said to the wise,

“Give us some of your de-icer and let us use your scrapers.”

But the wise replied, “We cannot.  Our de-icer is used up.  

You can see that our scrapers are now cracked and broken.  

You had better go and buy some for yourselves.”

The foolish argued, “But we cannot.  

Our cars are covered in snow and ice.  Can you drive us?”

The wise replied, “We cannot.  We are going south, you are going north.”  

Suddenly it was time to leave, so the wise ones did.  

Since the theater had closed for the night,

the foolish ones were left out in the cold. 

The message?  It’s the same as in the original version of Matthew 25:  some were prepared, some were not.  Spiritual maturity is our responsibility and requires regular maintenance.