Sermon Preached by Fr. John Hager for the Twenty-Fourth Sunday after Pentecost, November 8, 2026 (St. Matthew 25.1-13)
In late November of 1731, worshippers gathered for Sunday Holy Communion at the great Lutheran church of St. Thomas in the city of Leipzig.
It was the Twenty-Seventh Sunday after Trinity according to their liturgical calendar (not too far off from our own Twenty-Fourth Sunday after Pentecost) and the congregation would have heard lessons from Thessalonians—the part just before what we ourselves heard today, but with the same theme of the coming of the Lord Jesus—
And then, after a hymn, the Leipzig congregation heard the exact same Gospel reading that we heard today, from St. Matthew, chapter 25: the so-called parable of the ‘wise and foolish virgins.’
‘Keep awake therefore, for you know neither the day nor the hour.’
Having heard this Gospel read,
this Gospel of urgency,
surprise,
longing,
waiting,
and tension,
having heard this Gospel, the congregation would have then settled into their pews to hear the latest musical cantata composed for the service by their devout, hot-tempered, stubborn, uncompromising, and brilliant organist: Johan Sebastian Bach.
The great cantata he wrote for that Sunday is known as ‘Wachet auf, ruft uns die Stimme.’
‘Wake up, the voice calls us!’
The cantata is a masterpiece, to be sure.
And in it, we find an extraordinary mediation on the soul’s yearning for the coming of the Lord Jesus like the bridegroom in the night of the Gospel parable.
Now, even if you think have never heard the cantata before (and perhaps you haven’t) you have just heard and sung one very important part of it.
At the beginning of today’s liturgy, we sang the hymn ‘Sleepers wake! A voice astounds us.’
Our hymn is a translation of a famous Lutheran text and tune written and composed by a man called Philip Nicolai. It must be one of the most noble and beautiful tunes and texts ever created.
The tune is grand but joyful—it is indeed like a wedding march, a song of glory sung as we greet Christ as he comes to us. And this tune joined with Nicolai’s equally stirring, urgent, and even mystical text creates an effect of joyful yearning for the coming of Christ.
The tune and text were—and are—a staple of the great Lutheran tradition of hymn writing and singing.
And so, when Bach sat down to compose his cantata for the Twenty-Seventh Sunday after Trinity, what could he think of but this hymn about the parable of the wise and foolish virgins and the coming of Christ as the bridegroom?
Bach’s cantata ‘Wachet auf’ is in 7 parts: and this great chorale frames the whole thing.
One verse of the chorale was sung,
then two shorter solos and duets,
then the second verse of the chorale,
followed by another shorter solo and duet,
and concluding with the last verse of the chorale in glorious harmony.
I want to delve into this structure.
Because Bach has woven a complex but beautiful sermon of his own on the Gospel. Go home and listen to it!
At the start, the congregation would have encountered the orchestra playing a stately, almost march like melody. It builds and builds, almost accelerating, and over this pulsing movement Bach overlayed the first verse of the chorale: Wake up! The voice calls us! Stand up and take your lamps! Hallelujah! Make yourselves ready for the wedding, the choir sings, you must go to meet him!
But the splendor, even immediate excitement, of the call to the marriage supper soon fades into longing.
A tenor voice sings: He comes, he comes!
You daughters of Zion, come out!
After the stately chorale, a shift to a minor key makes the mood uncertain, evocative.
Then comes a remarkable duet between a soprano, representing the Christian soul, and a bass, representing Jesus.
When are you coming, my Savior? The soul sings.
I am coming, your portion, Jesus responds.
They go back and forth, the soul and Jesus, in a lilting melody that oscillates between major and minor.
The German word for ‘Savior’ is ‘Heil.’
And the German for ‘portion’ is ‘Teil.’
In this duet, Bach has masterfully written the music so that the words ‘Heil’ and ‘Teil’, sung by the soul and Jesus, eventually sound together.
As the soul cries out in longing for Jesus,
‘Wenn kömmst du, mein Heil?’
Jesus respons almost immediately.
‘Ich komme, dein Teil.’
Jesus hears the soul’s longing cry, and he meets it in the intimacy of the lover and the one who is loved.
After this, the congregation would have heard the second verse of the chorale. Bach composed a winding, intricate, repetitive melody over which he then has a tenor sing the chorale verse with its melody.
The mood is bright, happy—it’s like the feeling of a sunrise after a long night of anxiety, no sleep, expectation, and longing.
‘Her friend from heaven comes in his splendor,’ the tenor sings,
‘strong in mercy, mighty in truth.’
‘We all follow to the hall of joy and share in the Lord’s Supper.’
In that moment, I am sure, the congregation heard a poignant reminder of the fact that the Lord for whom they so long in their different ways would soon be met in the Sacrament of His Body and Blood.
Then comes a bass solo, in which Jesus is given some remarkable words:
He calls the soul to forget its anguish and sorrow,
and promises to greet his beloved soul with a kiss.
We know that some Lutherans raised their eyebrows at such seemingly sensual language in church.
But Bach commands the text and its idea beautifully.
He faces the idea front and center: Jesus loves us, and he desires us, and he is ready to receive us with love, no matter from where we have come.
This idea that Jesus is a lover of our souls is an old one—mystics and scholars found in certain places in scripture, chiefly the Song of Songs, an elaborate allegory for the love of Christ for his Church.
And even in our liturgy, we find the idea in the collect I always use after the Prayers of the People: Hear our prayers, for you are gracious, O Lover of Souls.
A joyful duet between the soul and Christ follows—the mood is tender, resplendent, and all consummation.
My friend is mine, the soul cries; and I am thine, Jesus responds.
Again, Bach harnesses the German language in his music to make the message clear: the German for ‘mine’ and ‘yours’—mein and dein—rhyme.
And so, in the winding, exuberant melodies, Bach has the two words meet in the music.
My friend is mine! And I am thine!
The cantata then concludes with the mighty last verse of the ‘Wachet auf’ chorale:
‘May Gloria be sung to you with the tongues of men and angels.’
‘In your city we are companions of the angels high around your throne.’
‘No eye has ever perceived; no ear has ever heard such joy.’
My outline of this extraordinary work of music doesn’t do it justice.
You will just have to listen for yourselves.
As we are on the cusp of Advent—when we will again call into our hearts and minds the first and the next coming of Christ—we may, like Bach’s cantata, oscillate between joyful knowledge of Jesus’ presence and the more yearning, even painful moments, of wondering where the Lover of Our Souls is.
And I suspect that the listeners of that cantata back in 1731 had similar thoughts and feelings—for those who listened carefully (we know that there was sometimes chatter during the music!).
But the power of Bach’s music is not its attempt to totally resolve the tension between longing for and knowing the Savior, the Lover of our Souls, the bridegroom of the Church.
The power of the music is its ability to draw us into the mystery that Christ is already present with us, even as we wait for him to come again.
The music—moving back and forth between longing, consummation, and the joy of the chorale for a wedding feast—the music teaches us all along that the fulness of the Lover of Our Souls is calling out to us as we, too, call out to him.
And so, our call to ‘keep awake’ and heed the voice crying out can only begin with knowing that the Lover of Our Souls is already always waiting for us to call to Him.
