With Lamps Lit

Yesterday I started preparing to preach about my last parable in my series - the wise and foolish bridesmaids. At the same time, I’m working on an Advent/Christmas resource and looking towards a series on the Fruit of the Spirit. My brain felt pulled in many directions at once.

As I pondered the different narratives and faith concepts in my head, I also realized that they are all linked. The parable about the bridesmaids is about Jesus’ return, or Second Coming, and could be used during Advent just as readily as the narrative from Luke 2 about Jesus’ promised birth. God’s people had been waiting for the appearance of the Messiah a long time and no doubt their oil was running low. Mary had to wait for His birth, under challenging circumstances, just as the bridesmaids had to wait for His return.

The wise bridesmaids reserve oil and keep their lamps lit, preparing for the long wait for the bridegroom. Those who didn’t bother to prepare and have enough oil to last are locked out of the feast when the groom finally shows up. They miss out because they rushed out to buy more oil and missed his arrival and the main event. They are inhibited because they’re so distracted by what they didn’t do to prepare.

I wonder what kept Mary’s lamp lit as people assumed that she’d been unfaithful, as she traveled 90 miles to visit Elizabeth who would understand what God was doing, and as she returned home only to make the long trip to Bethlehem for the census when she was nine months pregnant. I wonder if it was Jesus Himself inside her and the knowledge of how precious He was that kept her going, or her dogged determination as a teen, or the Spirit’s power comforting and enabling her to believe that she could do this.

Her groom nearly left her but then believed the angel’s message in a dream that he was still to marry her and raise her Child as his own. He kept going, leading his new bride on an arduous journey and responsible for her and their unborn Child. He suffered humiliation from others believing that Mary had cheated on him. He had to put immense trust in God to see them through this. He had to keep going, no matter how difficult things became. I wonder what kept his inner lamp lit, what kept guiding his way in this turbulent time.

How many of us have had our own oil run out over the last nearly year and a half, our energy depleted, our minds sliding into depression or burnout? What is the secret to those whose countenance says that their lamps are always full of oil, the wicks trimmed, their source of energy attended to? Because many people seem to have bounced back and more than survived this global crisis, while others have struggled.

When we get depleted, we can miss Jesus showing up for us. We can miss the main event. We can be so distracted with how we’re feeling or searching for what is missing, that elusive oil that will re-stoke our fire, that we don’t see what is in front of us.

Jesus is Emmanuel, God with us. I don’t know how you tap into this comforting reality practically or what your best source for soul replenishing is (and if you don’t know it’s high time you figure it out). It is intensely personal how God tops us up again, but it is critical to mental and spiritual health. The wise bridesmaids realized that if they gave up some of their oil, they would not last. It remained to the foolish bridesmaids to find their own oil. It remains to us too, much as we wish someone else’s health and joy could just spill over onto us, we need the discipline to do the work of going to find our own and staying topped up. We need to take the time to replenish our supply so that we can be ready for Jesus coming among us.

And perhaps as we wait, we will realize that He has been among us all along.