“And the foolish said unto the wise, Give us of your oil; for our lamps are gone out. But the wise answered, saying, Not so; lest there be not enough for us and you: but go ye rather to them that sell, and buy for yourselves. And while they went to buy, the bridegroom came; and they that were ready went in with him to the marriage: and the door was shut.” (Matthew 25:8-10). In the Parable of the Ten Virgins, the five foolish virgins had no oil. When Christ performed His great prayer of Atonement, He did so in an olive vineyard with a name that translates to Olive Press. The oil that the foolish virgins didn’t have was the oil that was squeezed out of our Savior in great drops as He suffered for all of our sins. The foolish virgins tried to get oil from the wise virgins, but it was not their oil to give. They tried to go buy oil, and thus missed the Lord when He came through. One thing did not occur to them. They did not ask for oil from the Bridegroom. They could have kept their spots that they had been waiting at all day and night and when the bridegroom came, He would have seen them still waiting patiently there. Yes, they might have been a little ashamed or embarrassed that their lamps were not lit by everyone else’s. But they wouldn’t have missed him while they were scrambling to try to find some oil. We can’t buy the healing and forgiving oil of the Atonement or borrow it from someone else. We can only get it from the Savior. Maybe the foolish virgins’ worst fears would have been realized and the bridegroom would have snubbed them or publicly humiliated them for being foolish enough to not have any oil in their lamps. Or maybe, if they had humbly and bravely stood their ground with their lamps unlit, the loving and understanding bridegroom would have gladly filled up their lamps to the brim with His oil so that they could join him in the celebration. It is hard for us to come back to the Lord and ask for more oil. Sometimes we haven’t even gotten out of the storehouse before tripping and falling and spilling it all over the ground. But Jesus has an infinite amount of oil for us. However, He can’t give it to us if we are running off trying to earn it or beg, borrow or steal for a few more drops. We often need more oil because we have acted like fools, but we are only doubling down on our foolishness if we try to buy it for ourselves. There is none to be bought, but the Savior will give it to us without price if we will just stand our ground with our unlit lamps and wait for Him to come to us. We also are foolish if we compare how quickly our lamps run out of oil compared to others. Some of us have bigger or smaller lamps than others. Some of our lamps have cracks in them. Again, the foolish virgins were not necessarily foolish because they ran out of oil, but because they were looking for more oil in all of the wrong places and because they left the one spot where they knew that the One with all of the oil was coming to. I hope that we will all be meek and lowly in heart and hold out our empty lamps and witness the love and the forgiveness and the tender mercies as He pours in oil overflowing again and again, as many times as we will bring him our lamps.
