Prepare a Flask
By Anthony Casperson
8-30-25

In the video game, Rogue Trader by Owlcat Games, there’s a section just past the prologue where the player is free to decide the exact order to deal with a handful of quests. Each one requires the player to send their character to a different planet. And it’s stated throughout the description of the quests that the player should attend to certain ones before too long.

The idea of a hidden timer in an RPG isn’t a foreign one. It helps build a sense of agency in the player. Their choices change the world around them. It’s quite unlike many RPGs where one can feel like the world just waits around for the player to arrive. Timers in these games mean that planning and careful allocation of resources are necessary for the player to consider. They can’t go on one more fetch quest while the big bad’s plans simmer in the background.

With this early section of Rogue Trader, players must pay attention to the smaller clues that indicate which quests have major consequences if not attended to in time. One in particular can leave a potential ally character dead, if the player doesn’t head to the planet they’re on within the first few choices.

And there’s no way to fix this consequence before it’s too late.

The inability to undo a foolish choice also stands as a main idea in our passage for this week’s blog in our quickly-ending summer series, “Mysteries of the Kingdom.” It speaks to the importance of preparation for what lies ahead and paying attention, lest major consequences fall upon us without the ability to change them.

While we’ll be in Matthew 25:1-13 for this week, a quick glance at the verses immediately preceding these will settle us into the flow of Jesus’ words. Previous to the parable, Jesus had given rapid-fire illustrations and short stories to proclaim the need for us to be prepared for his return. Since he was in the last few days before his crucifixion, such teachings became all the more important.

He told his followers to learn from the fig tree, which gave signs that the day of harvest was near. However, the day of Jesus’ return would be like in the days of Noah before the flood. People went about their daily lives without knowledge of the day, and were caught unaware in its coming. Thus, he described his return as obvious even as people are oblivious to it.

And Jesus ends chapter 24 with a story about a wise servant who did his daily routine right through the moment that the grateful master returns home. That wise servant was opposed to the foolish servant who assumed that he could wait until just before the master returned to go about his work. This foolish servant was caught unaware when the master found him failing the task set for him.

The parable in the first thirteen verses of Matthew 25 flows directly from these words. However, they take on a wedding theme that harkens back to last week’s blog.

We see ten virgins in the parable. Ten unwed women who were bridesmaids for a wedding. Unlike our western version of weddings, the marital ceremony of Jesus’ day had several specific phases that ended with a week-long feast.

The first phase involved waiting for the groom to arrive at the home of his soon-to-be bride. When the groom grew close—usually in the evening hours—the bridesmaids would led the groom to his bride. They’d literally light the way with small handheld lamps or torches.

Jesus sets us in this moment of the wedding events. With the bridesmaids. Waiting for the groom’s imminent return.

He divides the bridesmaids up between the wise bridesmaids, who had prepared for the event of a late arrival by bringing an extra flask of oil for their lamps, and the foolish bridesmaids, who had failed to account for the unexpected. Five of each type.

They’d waited for the groom to arrive, but he’d been held up for some reason. And as the waiting prolonged into the night, the bridesmaids fell asleep. They awoke to shouts of the groom’s arrival, and began to light their lamps.

But the five foolish bridesmaids realized that their lamps were already about to burn out. They needed more oil. They begged the five wise bridesmaids for some of their oil, but the wiser women measured out their extra and realized that none of them would be able to complete their tasks if they shared. The foolish bridesmaids would have to quickly go out to the local shop to get some more.

The five wise bridesmaids led the groom to his bride. They had something kinda like our wedding ceremony at the bride’s parents’ house. And then the groom, bride, and wedding guests would travel to the groom’s father’s house for the week-long feast. All of this happened before the foolish bridesmaids filled their lamps with oil.

Their job long past over.

But they were still part of the wedding party, right? They weren’t too late for a week-long feast, were they? Well, as they knocked on the door, the groom told them that he didn’t know who they were. And he sent them away.

Jesus ends this parable with a somber note that we should be watchful and prepared, because we don’t know the day or the hour of his return.

We followers of Jesus, like the bridesmaids, are waiting for the groom’s arrival. Jesus is coming to retrieve his bride—the Church—and we have a task in this life as we wait for him. An important duty in this life as we prepare his way.

As the story from the end of Matthew 24 showed us, it’s better for us to be found doing the task set for us, rather than sitting around at ease, thinking that we have time to get around to it.

The fact of the matter is that we don’t know when the groom is going to arrive. We’ve been waiting for nearly two thousand years. It’s late into the night. But that oil is necessary for the task.

Specifically for us, the task is to spread the gospel of Jesus to all of those around us, wherever we go, and also to help others grow to be more like our Savior, even as we grow into him. So, the question for followers of Jesus is, “What are you doing to share and live out the gospel?” Are we doing more than just seeing the mysteries of the kingdom? Are we putting the truth from the previous parables of our series into practice?

Are we doing all that we can to make the soil of our hearts into good, weed-less, un-rocky soil?

Are we extending a sense of neighborliness even to those who would consider us their enemy?

Do we keep the extent of God’s forgiveness to us in our minds and hearts as we deal with others who need our forgiveness?

Have we realized the extent of our lost-ness and entered the party thrown by our Father who came out to us?

Do we persistently stand before our judge, asking for justice that he will bring?

Have we accepted the invitation for the wedding feast, and clothed ourselves in the holiness he provided for us?

Are we allowing the mysteries of the kingdom to flow over us? Change us? Lead us to be more like our God and Savior?

If we’re not, then this summer blog series is nothing more than a bunch of words left to stagnate on the internet. It’s oil spent burning away into the night. And when the time comes, we’ll find we have no oil left to meet our groom with. We’ll have wasted our lives with temporary existence instead of the God-given purpose he made us for.

We don’t know when Jesus will return. There’s a hidden clock. And we only have so much time before it’s too late. Don’t waste that time. Be prepared. Take in the mysteries of the kingdom, and let them shape us as we grow to be more and more like our Lord and Savior.

And if there are any reading these words who are not currently a follower of Jesus, the truth of a hidden timer is all the more pressing. Life and death is on the line. Come before the cross of Jesus and bow your life to him. Join the rest of his people as we await the return of our groom. Grab a lamp and fill an extra flask. Don’t be left out of the party just because the groom never knew you.

The feast inside is like no other.