Reading 35
The ten who waited
The reading
Matthew 25:1-13
Then the Kingdom of Heaven will be like ten virgins, who took their lamps, and went out to meet the bridegroom. Five of them were foolish, and five were wise. Those who were foolish, when they took their lamps, took no oil with them, but the wise took oil in their vessels with their lamps. Now while the bridegroom delayed, they all slumbered and slept.
But at midnight there was a cry, “Behold! The bridegroom is coming! Come out to meet him!” Then all those virgins arose, and trimmed their lamps. The foolish said to the wise, “Give us some of your oil, for our lamps are going out.” But the wise answered, saying, “What if there isn’t enough for us and you? You go rather to those who sell, and buy for yourselves.”
While they went away to buy, the bridegroom came, and those who were ready went in with him to the marriage feast, and the door was shut. Afterward the other virgins also came, saying, “Lord, Lord, open to us.” But he answered, “Most certainly I tell you, I don’t know you.”
Watch therefore, for you don’t know the day nor the hour in which the Son of Man is coming.
The companions
Psalm 63:1-8 (selected)
God, you are my God. I will earnestly seek you. My soul thirsts for you. My flesh longs for you, in a dry and weary land, where there is no water. So I have seen you in the sanctuary, watching your power and your glory. Because your loving kindness is better than life, my lips shall praise you. So I will bless you while I live. I will lift up my hands in your name. My soul shall be satisfied as with the richest food. My mouth shall praise you with joyful lips, when I remember you on my bed, and think about you in the night watches. For you have been my help. I will rejoice in the shadow of your wings.
Amos 5:18-20
Woe to you who desire the day of the LORD! Why do you long for the day of the LORD? It is darkness, and not light. As if a man fled from a lion, and a bear met him; or he went into the house and leaned his hand on the wall, and a snake bit him. Won’t the day of the LORD be darkness, and not light? Even very dark, and no brightness in it?
The note
Read who slept. All ten did. The wise ones slept exactly as long as the foolish ones. Being tired is not the failure in this story, which is worth knowing, because it is the first thing people usually get wrong about it.
The difference is the reserve. Five brought extra oil and five did not, and at midnight that turns out to be the only thing that matters. It cannot be borrowed and there is nowhere to buy it at that hour.
Anyone who runs systems knows the shape of this. Nothing you need during an emergency can be built during one. A backup you have never restored is not a backup. Capacity is laid down in the boring months or it is not there at all.
What is the oil? He does not say. The rest of what he taught answers it.
This week
Name one reserve you are running low on: sleep, money, a friendship you have not maintained, a skill you keep meaning to relearn. Put one unit into it this week. One night, one transfer, one message, one hour.
At that size it will feel pointless, and that is the nature of a reserve. It only ever gets built in amounts that feel pointless, in weeks when nothing is happening.
For the watch
The oil is why our watch is a practice and not a mood. Excitement about the future burns out by midnight; a life quietly built the way of Jesus does not. So we keep the small daily watch, lamp trimmed, on the long nights when nothing seems to be coming, because the whole point of the story is that the cry comes when you cannot see it coming.
Scripture quotations are from the World English Bible (public domain). The divine name is rendered “the LORD” in the prophet reading.
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