In ancient Israel, when a man and a woman were to be married, they first were bound by a year-long betrothal, during which the husband and wife were legally joined, but the marriage was not consummated. Everyone knew that at some point when the year was up, the groom would, with much fanfare, return to the bride’s home and take her with him to the house he had prepared for her.
No one knew when the groom would return. It was his father who gave the go ahead, and while the bride waited, she readied herself. She kept her bags packed and her lamp ready to go with an ample supply of oil. Unpreparedness would have implied complacency and lack of honor to the groom. For the couple, the betrothal year was spent in joyous and eager anticipation.
We Are His Bride
In his parable of the ten virgins, Jesus used this imagery to describe the Kingdom of Heaven (Matthew 25:1-13). Waiting for the groom involved the bride and her attendants keeping an ample supply of oil to trim their lamps, in the event the groom returned at night. Dark lamps meant being shut out of the celebration. Dark lamps resulted in being left in the dark.
Throughout the gospels, Jesus used marriage as an allegory for his relationship to his church. Here, the church refers to the global body of followers of Jesus Christ, not a religious institution. If you believe that you are a sinner in need of a savior, and that Savior is Jesus Christ, you are his bride.
The Promise of His Coming
More than two thousand years have passed since Jesus told that parable. And his bride is still waiting. Many are asking the church, “Where is this messiah of yours? I think you may be mistaken.” I admit, more than once I have been tempted to ask the same thing. I am so grateful that in his benevolence, God has given us some preemptive reassurance.
…knowing this first of all, that scoffers will come in the last days with scoffing, following their own sinful desires. They will say, “Where is the promise of his coming? For ever since the fathers fell asleep, all things are continuing as they were from the beginning of creation.” But do not overlook this one fact, beloved, that with the Lord one day is as a thousand years, and a thousand years as one day. The Lord is not slow to fulfill his promise as some count slowness, but is patient toward you, not wishing that any should perish, but that all should reach repentance. 2 Peter 3:3-4, 8-9
Jesus is coming back. Based on the hundreds of prophecies and promises in the Bible that have already been fulfilled, there is no reason to believe otherwise.
So how’s your lamp?
Five Ways to Keep Our Lamps Trimmed
John Piper describes the lamp as the trappings of Christianity— what some might call religion. “I go to church. I carry a Bible. I pray before meals. I try to keep the Ten Commandments.” The oil, Piper says, is “life, faith, hope, love, reality.” Trimming an empty lamp is foolishness. Empty religion is foolishness. And, as Piper explains, “A life of foolishness deepens foolishness.”
Here are five ways, based on Piper’s description of the oil, to keep our lamps trimmed while we wait for Jesus’s return.
1. Life
We are given only one earthly life, and Christ would have us lose it completely. “Whoever loses his life for my sake will find it” (Matthew 16:25). 1 John 4:4 says anyone who follows Jesus Christ “belongs to God.”
Jesus demands no less than our entire life, which is then “hidden with him” (Colossians 3:3). When our life depicts the gospel, we are keeping our lamps trimmed. When the heavens dissolve, will you have been found “alive together with Christ” (Ephesians 2:5)?
2. Faith
The level at which you seek to cultivate your relationship with God is indicative of your level of faith. Regularly reading scripture, being an active part of a Bible believing church, meeting regularly with fellow believers, and filling your mind with the things of God are the soil in which faith grows.
Are you nourishing habits that produce an “assurance of things hoped for” and a “conviction of things unseen (Hebrews 11:1)?” When we consistently demonstrate a life of faith, we are keeping our lamps trimmed. When the heavens dissolve, will you have been found faithful?
3. Hope
Romans 8:24 says we were saved in hope. But not the kind of hope that we have when we hope the weather will cooperate for our vacation, or the hope that the adoption we so longed for will come through. Christian hope is a sure hope. It is an eager anticipation of a secure future with Christ, as adopted children and heirs to his throne. It is a hope without wondering if.
To what extent do you anticipate the return of Jesus Christ? Have you allowed complacency to dull your sense of hope? When we possess a sense of eager expectation, we are keeping our lamps trimmed. When the heavens dissolve, will you have been found fervently hoping for the appearance of Christ?
4. Love
In Matthew 25, Jesus describes what it looks like to love in God’s economy.
For I was hungry and you gave me food, I was thirsty and you gave me drink, I was a stranger and you welcomed me, I was naked and you clothed me, I was sick and you visited me, I was in prison and you came to me. As you did it to one of the least of these, my brothers, you did it to me. Matthew 25:35-36, 40
In other words, while you waited for my return, you loved. And in that love, you showed that you love me also.
How are you loving in your sphere of influence? From motherhood to the mission field, when we love others we are keeping our lamps trimmed. When the heavens dissolve, will you have been found loving?
5. Reality
The hope in which we live is “folly to those who are perishing” (1 Corinthians 1:18). But this hope in which we live is more real than anything our senses can apprehend in the temporal world.
Besides being complicated, reality in my experience, is usually odd. It is not neat, not obvious, not what you would expect. For example, when you have grasped that the earth and the other planets all go round the sun, you would naturally expect that all the planets were made to match—all at equal distances from each other, say, or distances that regularly increased, or all the same size, or else getting bigger or smaller as you go farther from the sun. In fact, you find no rhyme or reason (that we can see) about either the sizes or the distances; and some of them have one moon, one has four, one has two, some have none, and one has a ring. Reality, in fact, is usually something you could not have guessed. That is one of the reasons I believe Christianity. It is a religion you could not have guessed. If it offered just the kind of universe we had always expected, I should feel we were making it up. But, in fact, it is not the sort of thing anyone would have made up. It has just that queer twist about it that real things have.
C.S. Lewis became a Christian while seeking to debunk Christianity. But in the end, after extensive research meant to affirm his atheism, he concluded, “Heaven is reality itself. All that is fully real is Heavenly. For all that can be shaken will be shaken and only the unshakeable remains.”
Does your life reflect your belief in the reality of heavenly things? When we regard heaven as more real than earth, we are keeping our lamps trimmed. When the heavens dissolve, will you be found to have been grounded in the reality of the gospel?
Jesus is coming. Today or thousands of years from now, the Giver of oil has an endless supply to ready his bride for his impending return. May we all keep our lamps trimmed.