Foolish Bridesmaids

FOOLISH BRIDESMAIDS

(Matthew 25.1-13)

It was 1976. The Christmas festivities were over in the parish. I was exhausted. So my family and I decided to escape for a few days’ rest, to our country cottage on Dartmoor.

Over recent weeks we had had some difficulties with our large open fireplace. For reasons beyond my comprehension, the fire would not draw, and so the room would fill with smoke.

However, I had solved the problem. Smokeless fuel was the answer. And so amidst the food and drink loaded into the car, there were two bags of smokeless fuel.

Upon arrival, we quickly unpacked, and as my wife got on with the supper, I got on with the fire. After supper we played scrabble for a while, but my elder son felt tired and had a headache, and so went to bed. My younger son then felt tired and had a headache, and so he went to bed early.

About an hour later my wife too decided to have an early night, since she too felt tired and had the starting of a headache.

As she began to climb the stairs, I suddenly realised that she and my young boys were suffering from carbon monoxide poisoning. If there was insufficient draught to draw the smoke up the chimney, there was insufficient draught to draw the fumes from the smokeless fuel which I had brought. [As you can see, I am no scientist!]

Never have I moved so fast in my life. The family were bundled into the car, and although there was fog and ice on the road, I managed to make the hospital in record time.

It was on the following day that I realised how close to death we had been and, if we had died, what an awful mess we would have left for others to sort out. I therefore spent the rest of the Christmas break sorting out files!

Although I had read the parable of the Foolish Bridesmaids many times, I suddenly found myself looking like a foolish bridesmaid!

To our Western ears, the parable may seem rather odd, but in the culture of the day, it is not so strange.

A wedding in a village, in New Testament times, was a big event to which everybody came. After much feasting and entertainment, the climax would eventually arrive, when the bridegroom would come, with his attendants, to take his bride from her home to that of his father. This would be accompanied with a torchlight procession.

Now for reasons which we do not know, the bridegroom was delayed and the attendant bridesmaids had become drowsy with sleep. Then suddenly the cry went up that the bridegroom was coming. The bridesmaids got up, lit their torches with a view to accompanying the bridegroom to the bride’s home.

Whilst five of the bridesmaids had sufficient oil for their torches, since they had come prepared for a long wait, if necessary, the other five bridesmaids had run out of oil. Naturally, the five who were caught unprepared, asked if they could borrow some oil from those bridesmaids who had some. However, they refused, in case there was not enough for themselves.

The coming of the bridegroom was the time when the bridesmaids were judged, or tested, as to their state of readiness. It was a time of crisis. In fact, the Greek word for 'judgment' actually means 'crisis'.

Throughout our lives we are faced with endless crises, when we are tested by God. And as we respond to each crisis, we begin to form the character by which we shall be ultimately judged by God. It is no good waiting until we are about to draw our final breath, because by then it will be too late. It is up to each of us to live our lives in a constant state of readiness.

When Mary of Orange, who became Queen of England in 1687, was told that she was about to die, her chaplain asked her, 'Shall I come and say prayers with you. She replied, 'My friend, I did not leave this matter until now’.

My friends, do not leave your preparation to meet the Bridegroom until the hour of your death. Make sure you will be numbered among the wise and not the foolish bridesmaids.