Before the Whistle Blows: What Soccer Can Teach Us About Waiting on Jesus

If you have ever watched a soccer match, you know the frustration. There is no clock counting down. Instead, it counts up, and only one person on the entire pitch, the referee, knows exactly how much time is left. At the end of a half, he holds up a sign with a number on it: 6 added minutes, 7, sometimes as high as 11. Where did all that time go?

That was stoppage time, every moment play stopped for a foul, an injury, or a celebration, tracked and added back on. Americans tend to hate this. We love knowing exactly when something will end. We love the buzzer beater, the Hail Mary on the final play, the moment the whole crowd rushes the court because they knew, to the second, when the game would be over.

But here is the thing about soccer's strange timekeeping: it is intentional. Not knowing when the final whistle will blow forces both teams to stay engaged, all the way to the end. Nobody can just run out the clock, because nobody knows when the clock runs out.

That is not a bad description of the Christian life.

The Waiting Place

We do not like waiting. Not really. Dr. Seuss captured it well in Oh, the Places You Will Go, describing "the waiting place" – people waiting for the bus, the mail, the rain to stop, the phone to ring, a yes or a no. We spend so much of life waiting for the next thing, and so much energy trying to feel in control of exactly when it will arrive.

But in Scripture, waiting is not passive. In fact, the Hebrew word for waiting is tied closely to the word for trust. Isaiah 40 puts it this way:

He gives strength to the faint and strengthens the powerless. Youths may become faint and weary, and young men stumble and fall, but those who trust in [or wait on] the Lord will renew their strength; they will soar on wings like eagles; they will run and not become weary, they will walk and not faint. (Isaiah 40:29-31)

Waiting on God is active. It keeps us engaged, not sitting back with our arms crossed until something happens.

The Parable of the Ten Virgins

That brings us to Matthew 25:1-13, the Parable of the Ten Virgins (or bridesmaids), one of Jesus's final public teachings before his arrest and crucifixion.

The Parable of the Wise and Foolish Virgins (1822) by William Blake

Ten bridesmaids took their lamps and went out to meet the groom. Five were foolish and brought no extra oil. Five were wise and brought oil in flasks along with their lamps. The groom was delayed, and all ten fell asleep. At midnight, the cry went up: "Here's the groom, come out to meet him!" The bridesmaids got up and trimmed their lamps, and the foolish ones, realizing their lamps were going out, begged the wise ones for oil. The wise ones refused, worried there would not be enough for everyone, and sent them off to buy their own. While they were gone, the groom arrived. Those who were ready went in with him to the wedding banquet, and the door was shut. When the others returned and knocked, pleading to be let in, the groom answered, "Truly I tell you, I don't know you." Jesus ends with the point: "Therefore, be alert, because you don't know either the day or the hour."

To understand this story, it helps to know how weddings actually worked in Jesus's time. A betrothal was not like our modern engagement. It was a legally binding arrangement between two families. Once betrothed, the groom would leave to prepare a place for his bride, often adding a room onto his family's house, and settle the finances. When everything was ready, he would return, usually at night, to claim his bride. Sometimes there was still negotiating to finish, and the groom's arrival could be delayed. The wedding party waited outside in the dark for the announcement that he was coming, then lit their lamps to illuminate the path home. Once everyone was inside, the door was shut, and it was not reopened, not even for latecomers.

Jesus takes that familiar scene and turns it into a picture of the kingdom of heaven, built on two truths.

Two Truths We Cannot Escape

First, the end will come. Either through our own death or through Christ's return, called the Parousia. There is no third option.

Second, no one knows when. Throughout history, people have claimed to have cracked the code, piecing together prophecies to predict the exact moment. Every single time, they have been wrong. No one knows.

So what do we do in the meantime? The parables surrounding this one in Matthew 24 and 25 – the faithful and wicked servants, the parable of the talents, the sheep and the goats – all wrestle with that same question from different angles. What happens if the end comes sooner than we expect? What happens if it comes later? And either way, what is expected of us right now?

Acts 1 gives us a picture of the answer. After Jesus ascends, the disciples stand staring up into the sky, and two angels ask them plainly: "Why do you stand looking into heaven?" In other words, get to work. You are not going to miss it. We have two dogs at our house who serve as our alarm system any time a vehicle pulls in our driveway. We do not have to stand by the window watching for a delivery truck, because we will know the moment it shows up. In the same way, we do not have to stand around staring at the clouds waiting for Christ to return. We will know. Our job in the meantime is to live as citizens of the kingdom now, not to sit and wait.

The Delay Is a Feature, Not a Bug

Here is something worth sitting with: 2 Peter tells us the Lord is not slow in keeping his promise, but is patient, not wanting anyone to perish. The delay itself is an act of mercy. Every generation of Christians, going back to the apostles, has believed they were living in the last days. And yet here we are, 2,000 years later. Maybe there is still more work to do. Maybe there are still more people who need to hear the good news.

Pastor and author Brian Zahnd once wrote about imagining a future where Christians look back on us the way we look back on the early church, as the very beginning of the story. Can we be content with that kind of caretaker role, or do we assume we must be the final generation? It is a hard tension to hold: living with real anticipation that Christ could return at any moment, while also being ready for the possibility that it might still be a very long way off.

Stay Prepared

The heart of this parable, and the others surrounding it, comes down to two words: stay prepared. Being prepared does not mean stockpiling supplies like a doomsday prepper. It means living now the way citizens of the kingdom are meant to live, faithfully, generously, and engaged, not waiting for some future moment to start.

Notice also what separates those inside the banquet from those locked outside. It is not effort or good intentions. It is whether the groom knows them. "Truly I tell you, I don't know you." That is the real question underneath this whole story: not simply whether we know about Jesus, but whether we are known by him. That kind of relationship, being known by Christ, cannot be borrowed from someone else's faith. It has to be our own.

Jesus said it best to his disciples the night before his death: "Don't let your hearts be troubled. Believe in God, believe also in me. In my Father's house are many rooms. I am going to prepare a place for you, and I will come again and take you to be with me." That is the same bridegroom language from the parable. He has gone to prepare a place. And when the time is right, he will come back for his bride.

Until then, our job is not to stand around staring at the sky. It is to stay engaged, stay ready, and keep working, because we do not know when the final whistle is going to blow.

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