“Give me oil in my lamp, keep me burning…”
I hope you enjoyed singing that old camp song as much as I did – a song that many of us learned way back when we were young kids in church youth group. Of course, we’ve updated the song to better fit our congregation here at Tellico in this stage of our lives…”Give me stents for my heart, keep it beating…” is a verse written especially for us.
But the opening verse, “Give me oil in my lamp, keep me burning…” comes to us directly from our Scripture text in Matthew 25. It is the parable of the ten virgins whose lamps were ablaze, awaiting the arrival of a bridegroom. But some of these young women had not planned on enough oil to make it through the night and when their lamps began to flicker and fade and go out, they had to go and fetch more oil. But by the time they got back, the bridegroom had already come by, the wedding banquet was in full swing, and they were not allowed to come in.
“Give me oil in my lamp, keep me burning; Give me oil in my lamp, I pray; Give me oil in my lamp, keep me burning-burning-burning; Keep me burning ‘till the break of day!”
Now this little story that became a camp song is made all the more meaningful when you know the story-behind-the-story. You see, Jewish marriage rituals of the early first century went something like this:
The man who sought the hand of a woman would go down to the house where she lived and state his intentions to her father. The young man and the father would negotiate a marriage contract and once they’d both signed on, the father would call his daughter into the room. The love-smitten young man would then pour a cup of wine, and hold it out to her. He would say, “Take, and drink.”
Does this sound a little bit like what Jesus says when the Communion Cup is held out to us? Hold that thought.
Now, if the girl took the cup and drank from it, it meant, “YES!!! And then – listen to this – the joyful groom-to-be would look lovingly into her eyes and say words like these, “I go to prepare a place for you, and when I have prepared a place for you, I will come again, and take you to myself, that where I am, you may be also.”
You recognize those words, don’t you? They are the words Jesus spoke to his followers at the Last Supper, right after he held out to them the cup and said, “Take and drink!” Hold those thoughts!
And then the bridegroom would dash out of the house of his betrothed, and go running down the pathway doing cartwheels and singing and telling everybody the good news that she had said, “YES!” And he would assemble his friends and together they would begin to prepare a bridal chamber – sometimes even building a brand new house for the love of his life! And this all took some time, you see, sometimes as long as a year! And no one back at the bride’s house knew when the bridegroom would return to claim his bride – well, except for her father who needed to put together the dowry and had to have some sense of the timing. So he would check on the groom’s progress from time-to-time. But no one else knew when the bridegroom would return! Only the father.
Isn’t it interesting that when Jesus’ disciples – after they had taken the Cup, and after he told them he was going to prepare a place for them – asked Jesus when he would return for them…and he said, “No one knows the day or the hour, but only the Father”?!
Do you see the connections here?
And then Jesus told the disciples that they should watch and wait for his return! And that’s exactly what happens next in the story-behind-the-story-of-the-song-we-just-sang!
The bride would ask all her friends to be bridesmaids, and part of the bridesmaid’s job was to go out at night with oil lamps and light the path to the house. It was a tradition for the groom and his friends – when they had finished preparing the bridal chamber – to get all cleaned up, put on their rented tuxedos, and process down to the bride’s house to bring her to the wedding. So night after night, the bridesmaids would light their lamps and with joyful anticipation wait for the first signs of the bridegroom coming down the path to get his bride. But because no one but the father knew the day or the hour, there was a lot of watching and waiting, so you can imagine what sometimes happened. Sometimes the bridesmaids got a little tired and fell asleep. And sometimes they ran out of oil.
“Give me oil in my lamp, keep me burning, burning, burning; keep me burning ‘till the break of day!”
Do you get the picture?
Now in this parable, some of the bridesmaids do run out of oil. They have to go and buy more oil, and – tragedy of tragedies – by the time they get back to the bride’s house, the bridegroom has already come. The family, the friends, bridesmaids, groomsmen, the flower girl and ring bearer, the wedding photographer, the video guy, the bride herself and the groom himself have all gotten into the limos and gone down to the Tellico Village Yacht Club for the wedding banquet. So these bridesmaids in desperation cram into a little Volkswagen Beetle and zoom down Tellico Parkway to the Yacht Club. But when they knock at the door, they can’t get in. They’ve missed out.
And the moral of the story-behind-the-story-of-the-song-we-just-sang is that we must be watchful, faithfully carrying out our God-given responsibilities as we wait for the time of God’s kingdom to come.
Otherwise, we may miss it!
Now, sometimes the power of this parable is missed because we think of it only in terms of Christ’s second coming. And it is about that, but when we think of how people have been watching and waiting for centuries for that wonderful moment to arrive, we can well understand how tired people get of waiting. And cynical, too. I remember once receiving in the mail an unsolicited book whose title was 1998 reasons why Jesus will return in 1998. Well, that was twenty-five years ago! No wonder people today are cynical about the coming of God’s kingdom.
But this parable is about more than just the second coming of Christ. It is about becoming attentive to all of the divine moments that come our way in the midst of life – moments when heaven seems to break into the reality of our daily routine – moments when angels come, and little miracles happen, and God’s love touches us in special ways that are easy to miss if we are not watching.
When our daughter Bethany was 8-years old, she started playing Little League baseball. Beth was a wonderful baseball player and, in fact, was terribly disappointed the year we moved to another town where they made girls play softball instead of baseball. But that’s another story.
There was a little boy on Bethany’s baseball team whose name was Isaiah. Isaiah had a lot of things that made life difficult for him, including the fact that he was virtually deaf and had to wear hearing aids on both ears. And you know how kids give a hard time to those who are different, and poor Isaiah was the brunt of a lot of teasing. But he had a wonderful spirit about him and tried very hard to play baseball. But he just couldn’t get the hang of it. Every time Isaiah stepped up to the plate, he’d take a mighty swing – and miss. Strike one, strike two, strike three. After a while they even gave him more strikes, but it didn’t make any difference.
This was hard on Isaiah’s parents. Every time their boy came up to bat they hoped-beyond-hope that it would be different this time – that Isaiah would hit the ball. But he never did. After awhile, his dad didn’t even come to the games anymore because it was just too painful to watch his son fail time after time. It was even hard for the rest of us parents and the other players on the team who wanted Isaiah to succeed. But no matter how much we encouraged him, and no matter how hard Isaiah tried, the result was always the same, “Strike one! Strike two! Strike three!” would call the umpire. “Strike four! Strike five, six, seven, eight!” the ump continued. And then, “I’m sorry Isaiah, but we have to let the other kids have a turn now.”
We other dads tried to work with Isaiah on the sidelines. The other kids encouraged him to keep trying. The moms gave him snacks and cheered him on.
And then one day, a miracle happened.
Isaiah got his bat and walked up to the plate. The first pitch came. “Strike one!” The second pitch came. “Strike two!” The third pitch came…and then there was a loud….CRACK of Isaiah’s bat hitting the ball!
The ball shot out to right field!
Well, I’ll tell you, in that moment of time, the earth stopped spinning, and the universe screeched to a halt. The birds stopped singing, and dogs stopped barking, and even the Alabama Crimson Tide stopped rolling! All creation seemed to pause to watch the holy moment! And Isaiah stood frozen at the plate in complete shock!
“Run, Isaiah, run!” shouted his mother at the top of her lungs. The kids started screaming. We parents started cheering. And Isaiah started running to first base.
Now remember, these were eight-year old kids having their first experience with baseball. So when the right fielder stopped picking dandelions long enough to retrieve the ball Isaiah had hit, he gave it a mighty throw…to left field. And the left fielder had the ball bounce against his leg and started crying, so the shortstop dashed out to pick up the ball, but threw it backwards…do you get the picture?
And all the while, little Isaiah was running for his life – running to first base…running to second base…running to third base……….and then Isaiah slid HOME!
Isaiah had hit a home run!
And when he finally got out from under the pile of kids who greeted him at home plate, Isaiah ran to his mother who was crying tears of joy, and she swept him up in her arms and kissed her little boy. And all the other parents were crying, too. Even the parents of the other team.
You see, we know a holy moment when we see one – when heaven comes down and glory fills a soul, when healing unexpectedly bursts forth into the life of one of God’s broken children, when joy comes to someone who really needs it, when a person who has been knocked down by life gets picked up by the grace of God, and you can almost hear the angels sing.
Oh, what a moment in time – a holy, blessed, miraculous moment in the life of little Isaiah!
And even today, I wish his father could have seen it. But he didn’t. Isaiah’s dad missed out on that one holy moment in time.
There are some moments in time you can never get back – with our children, in our families, in our relationships with others and with God. Once they have passed you by, they are gone forever.
So Jesus counsels us not only about his return, but also about the lives we live every day:
“Keep watch, because you do not know the day or the hour.”
Keep watch over your family. Keep watch over your neighbors. Keep watch over the church. Keep watch over your life. Keep watch over your faith.
You do not know the day or the hour when the kingdom will come to you.
Once upon a time, there was a man who, in the later years of his life wrote each day in a diary about the meaning of the life he lived that day, and about the hope he had for the coming of God’s kingdom. He ended every daily entry with the hopeful words, “Maybe tomorrow!”
Time went by, and the old man died. His children – cleaning out his house – came upon that old diary. They opened it and read a page here and a page there, each one ending with his words of hope for the coming of God’s kingdom, “Maybe tomorrow!”
They laughed a little about how their dad had always tried to live his life as if the kingdom would come tomorrow. They used to tease him about that, calling him a religious fanatic – though they were only teasing. And he was gracious about it, but reminding them that how they lived their lives every day was important because, “Maybe tomorrow.”
The last few pages of the diary spoke of his love for his family, and his prayer that they would be faithful when he was gone.
And each day’s entry ended with the words, “Maybe tomorrow.”
Then his family turned the last page of the diary.
It was from the day he died.
And on that page was written just one word.
“Today!”
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