Sunset at the Basilica di Santa Maria Della Salute on the Grand Canal in Venice, Italy
Parable of the Ten Virgins
It was late, and I was in bed studying the three familiar, Sunday school stories of Matthew 25. These parables are part of Jesus' final, weighty sermon before His arrest, maybe intentionally
grouped together by Matthew as they have a common distinct purpose. As I sat
there in the quiet of my room, my eyes grew heavy. My mind was slowing down,
and a familiar, quiet exhaustion settled deep into my bones.
When Jesus spoke these three final warnings on the Mount of
Olives, I wonder if the disciples were fighting to stay awake just like I was.
After all, everyone in that ancient crowd had been looking for an easy, instant
victory; a political kingdom that would rescue them immediately. Instead, Jesus
seemed to be giving them a sobering roadmap for the long, dark hours ahead.
Perhaps I dozed off, because in the quiet, I could suddenly
hear the echoes of the old children's song: "Give me oil in my lamp,
keep me burning... keep me burning..."
When I woke, or perhaps as I dreamed, the room felt gloomier
than before. The night was strangely quiet. In my mind’s eye, I was watching
the Ten Virgins. They were eagerly waiting, their clay lamps all brightly lit
against the dark. And then, I watched as they all succumbed to their weariness
and fell asleep.
Suddenly, the heavy silence was shattered by screams and
shouts. The bridegroom is coming! The bridegroom is coming!
The women bolted upright. They frantically adjusted their clothes, wiped the sleep from their faces, and reached for their lamps. But alas, their lights were sputtering and flickering out.
In the panic of the
dark, the song returned to me like a plea: "Keep me burning, burning,
burning..."
I sat up in bed, the children's song still ringing in my
ears, as the apparent unfairness of the story hit me. Jesus, is this a fair
story? Had not all ten virgins left the comfort of their homes? All ten had
the right intentions, the same enthusiasm, and even the same joint purpose.
They were all chosen to be part of the wedding party, dressed to suit the part,
and committed to the cause. They were all acting out their potential and their
roles to provide light. And when the wait grew too long, they all got tired and
fell asleep because they were humanly exhausted.
So, what on earth was Jesus talking about? What actually
made five of them wise and five of them foolish? Am I a foolish virgin? Will I
only find out the truth on the day the Groom finally returns?
The answer, I realized, is actually quite simple.
The wise virgins brought enough extra oil to keep their lamps burning for a very specific length of time. Until the light of day. Until the dawn breaks.
They
had anticipated that they needed enough oil for the maximum length of the
night, and they brought the source of that oil with them. Simple.
Keep me burning till the break of day. Sing Hosanna. Sing
Hosanna.
When they woke up and realized their lamps were flickering,
both groups realized that they needed more oil. The wisdom of the five wise
virgins wasn't that they were holier or stronger. Remember, they had fallen asleep too.
Their wisdom was simply their brutal honesty. They looked at the dark Judean
sky, admitted their own human limitations, and said, "Our lamps will
not survive this night on their own. We need a reservoir."
The foolish ones were the ones who refused to accept their
weakness until it was too late. When the crisis hit, they went scrambling into
the dark to find a midnight merchant of oil. That frantic, superficial rush for
a quick fix is what ultimately disqualified them from the wedding party. They
chose a false hope over the Groom.
Jesus used this precise, shocking edge to shatter our
dangerous illusion of "good intentions." He was showing that the
point of the Christian life is not about having a heart that merely wishes to
be there; it is about having a soul that is actually anchored for the reality
of the journey.
Jesus wasn't punishing them for being tired. He was exposing
the danger of a faith that lives only on the surface. The wise virgins didn't
join the Groom in the wedding because they were perfect, but because they knew
they were weak enough to need a reservoir.
The sobering reality is that the race of faith has a finish
line, and I don’t want to get disqualified before I cross it. Paul outlines
this beautifully in his letter to the Corinthians:
"Do you not know that those who run in a race all
run, but one receives the prize? Run in such a way that you may obtain it...
But I discipline my body and bring it into subjection, lest, when I have
preached to others, I myself should become disqualified." 1
Corinthians 9:24, 27
I was once a foolish virgin, till grace found me and when I
realized that being held by Jesus means I don't have to manufacture my own
light. Sometimes we get off track, or let the voices of the crowd distract us,
causing us to stumble just as the Galatians did:
"You were running a good race. Who cut in on you to
keep you from obeying the truth?" Galatians 5:7
But because of His grace, I do not have to live in the fear
of running out or being locked out. Salvation is not a frantic midnight
scramble. It is the freedom of knowing that I must bring my fragile human
heart to Him, yielding my life daily, and trust Him to keep my fire burning
until the dawn.
And when that dawn finally arrives, the flickering shadows
of the night will melt away, and our small clay lamps will no longer be needed.
We will finally step into the permanent, blinding light of the morning in the
New Jerusalem, where the ultimate promise of scripture is fulfilled:
Revelation 22:5
Wonderful explanation of the parable. I loved how you focused on grace than works which is usually not the way most interpret this parable. Thank you!
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