or Five Days to Christmas
We just went to my nephew's wedding this weekend past. His speech was one of the best I ever heard, and they both seem very solid in their love. There are a lot of lessons we learn from weddings in the Bible, but in honour of the number five we shall ponder the five wise and five foolish virgins.
Then shall the kingdom of Heaven be likened to ten virgins, who took their lamps and went out to meet the bridegroom. And five of them were wise, and five were foolish. The foolish ones took their lamps, but took no oil with them. But the wise took oil in their vessels with their lamps. Mt. 25:1-4
So we see that all ten were virgins- physically meaning sexually pure or figuratively meaning clean and spotless before God. All ten had their lamps in hand, ready to light the way when need be. They all slept (v.5) while waiting for the groom. Then when the groom finally came, they all trimmed their lamps, but only five were wise enough to bring extra oil. The foolish ones brought no extra and their lamps ran out. They said 'Give us some of your oil for our lamps have gone out.'
Foolishly they demanded. Foolishly they didn't have extra available for such an important occasion. The wise virgin's lamps still shone but they only had enough oil for themselves, so they told the foolish virgins to go buy some. While they were out buying, the groom came and those left went in to the ceremony (v.10). The five foolish girls came and asked to be let in (v.11) but the groom said, "I do not know you." (v.12) Besides the fact these verses could mean something we like to ignore, lets consider what is stressed: wise and foolish.
The light of the wise five remained lit while the light of the foolish five went out. The wise girls were prepared (with extra oil) while the foolish girls thought only of current, not future needs. The wise girls slept because they were already prepared, but the foolish girls should have gone out to buy instead of sleep; or they could have thought to send one of them to go buy more oil. They were 'in' someplace sleeping (v.6), so perhaps they could have seen if there was oil in that place. It seems like the five foolish girls continued to act foolishly. Regardless, the biggest foolishness was in not being prepared for the groom to arrive:
Therefore watch, for you do not know either the day or the hour in which the Son of Man comes. Mt. 25:13
We need to be prepared!