Scouts everywhere are familiar with the dictum “Be Prepared.” They recognize the need to know how to be ready for whatever may come. Floridians understand the need for hurricane preparedness and keep supplies and an evacuation plan at hand. People living in Tornado Alley have their windowless “safe room” scoped out, and folks who live on the San Andreas Fault know what it takes to be prepared for earthquakes. Things requiring physical preparations, even when unexpected or sudden, we can generally manage with some degree of competency. But what about spiritual preparedness, that referred to in Jesus’ parable in our gospel for today?

Our collect for today gives us a hint of what that preparedness may require. “Grant that, having this hope (the hope that we would become ‘children of God and heirs of eternal life’), we may purify ourselves as [Christ] is pure; that, when he comes again with power and great glory, we may be made like him in his eternal and glorious kingdom.” “Purify ourselves”—just how do we go about doing that? I suspect there may be as many ways of purifying ourselves as there are those desiring to be prepared to meet God face to face. I doubt that the process of personal purification is a one-size-fits-all any more than the process of preparing for a hurricane in Florida would be appropriate in the event of an earthquake in California or a tornado in Tennessee. For me, hearing the bridegroom say, “Truly I tell you, I do not know you,” is a clue to what the preparedness/purification process must be about. If we want Christ to know us when that time comes, it behooves us to work on getting to know him, developing a personal relationship with him here and now. While that work will be different for each of us, it will involve intention, commitment, time and attention, repentance and returning to the Lord again and again, and deep inner spiritual work to open us up to receive God’s healing, life-giving presence. In the end, it is only through God’s transforming, deifying love that we may be made into the imago dei, that we may be prepared for the wedding banquet that scripture promises.