Batteries Not Included

Then the kingdom of heaven will be like 10 virgins who took their lamps and went out to meet the groom. Five of them were foolish and five were sensible. When the foolish ones took their lamps, they didn’t take oil with them. But the sensible ones took oil in their flasks with their lamps. Since the groom was delayed, they all became drowsy and fell asleep.

In the middle of the night [at the midnight hour -- traditional] there was a shout: ‘Here’s the groom! Come out to meet him!’ – Matthew 25:1-6

Oil, we were always reminded, is a type of the Holy Spirit. But the story isn’t just about oil, it is about fire and light. As long as the sun is up and everything is evident and exposed to the natural eye, oil, to the mind of the foolish, is superfluous.

I used to read this story and picture in my mind the coal oil lamps that all of us country folks had sitting around for those quite frequent times when the power failed. They are antiques now, but we had to use them any time there was lightning, high winds, heavy rain, or, sometimes, for no apparent reason. Electricity was considerably less reliable in our part of the country fifty years ago. Our lamps, of course, had a big reservoir from which the wick drew kerosene, as well as a tall, very fragile chimney that bellied around the flame to both protect and feed it. The lamps of the virgins were not like that. They might have been terra cotta vessels about two inches deep and four inches across – the width of a man’s palm. Those lamps had one larger center opening an inch or so across in which to pour the oil, with a smaller opening at the nose of the lamp for the wick. Some were even less elaborate – simply an open, clamshell-shaped dish with a narrow, elevated slot to hold the wick. These were not lamps with a long burning time. The first five virgins were foolish, not because they had only a little oil, but because they had none. Without batteries even a Surefire M6 isn’t illuminating.

We should do our work in the day, preparing for the coming, inevitable night. Part of that preparation is to provision ourselves with light for those long dark hours when the sun is as far away as it can get, when life reaches the nadir, when natural perception faces the blackness of incomprehension.

My daughter gave birth to a healthy, normal baby -- on Lincoln’s birthday. Given her age and the problems she has had over the past few years – including foolishly totaling a perfectly good car shortly after she became pregnant, this is miraculous. On the other hand, there is my niece. She is younger than my daughter and in better health. She had two previous pregnancies with no problems at all. She has a stable life, a loving husband, and no bad habits of which I am aware. My niece is as beautiful, intelligent, kind, and loving a person as you are ever likely to meet. Yet, the same day that my new grandson arrived, my niece learned that the child she is carrying will likely not be born alive, and, if by some wondrous chance he is, he would require immediate surgery. The prospects are not good. For her, it is midnight. I believe, though, my niece and her husband are numbered among the wise. They can trim their lamps and go on knowing the light they have will not fail even in the darkness of sorrow, grief, loss, and disappointment.

As long as the good are rewarded and the bad are punished, I’m OK. The mind of modern man tends to think his judgment is less fallible than that of his predecessors, perhaps less fallible even than the relatively primitive mind of Christ. We are more evolved and enlightened. We are better able to judge right and wrong. Some of us think ourselves capable of judging God and calling His actions into question. Call me a stop sign, but that is a bad road, if a sure one, to Midnight itself.

The odd thing is that the midnight hour is supposed to be a joyous occasion, a celebration, not because it is dark, but because of our being reunited with the Groom. If we are ready, if we have prepared ourselves, built up our reserve ahead of the times of darkness, we will welcome Him and come to know Him in a greater and more intimate way. Otherwise, we will flee in shame. I cannot speak where others are concerned, but, for myself, I know that God always gives me grace to prepare. I may allow myself to be distracted, to become foolish in my thinking, to be turned aside to other things and neglect the filling of my flask, but I can never say that I had no opportunity to be ready. In a moment’s time really, I can have all the oil I need to feed the flame of truth all through the darkest of nights.

Get ready.