Brerah

The Bride and Her Wedding

I just made a 12 hour journey from Nashville to OKC last night, so I'm feeling a little rugged this morning. But I tell you what, books on tape are a wonderful thing. The drive pretty much flew by as I found myself entrenched in Deception Point by Dan Brown.

The reason that I drove 12 hours to Oklahoma is that a couple of my good friends from Duncan are getting married. Its a beautiful story, they dated for 9 years until last spring when they broke up. They haven't dated for 10 months, and on Valentine's Day he showed up at her house and they got engaged, and 3 weeks later, they're getting married. How normal is that? Not very. But at any rate, I am so happy I can hardly contain it. JJ grew up down the block from me and was a very influential person in my growing up and spiritual maturing. He's what you would want in a friend, other than the fact that he doesn't ever call you. I'm a pretty big fan of weddings in general, and I think we all should be for good reason. Weddings are a wonderful time when two people come together with all of their sin, shortcomings, and, well, their crap. But the reason that I love weddings so much is that they are a small glimpse of the grand wedding that is to come. For all believers, all those who are part of the (invisible) church, we are a bride too, Jesus' bride. This thought has not always gripped me as much as it does now. I don't think anyone can fully understand how beautiful a thing it is, until we realize how much we(the church) don't deserve our groom. You see, what we bring to the table is a lifetime of rebellion, sin, and whorring around (as Biblical imagery would have it). What Jesus brings is incomprehensible patience, forgiveness, and love. We will never be able to understand why or how he loves us like he does (hence the word incomprehensible). He loves us because of what we do. WRONG!!!!! Listen as the Lord talks to Israel in Deuteronomy 7:6-8, "6 “For you are a people holy to the Lord your God. The Lord your God has chosen you to be a people for his treasured possession, out of all the peoples who are on the face of the earth. 7 It was not because you were more in number than any other people that the Lord set his love on you and chose you, for you were the fewest of all peoples, 8 but it is because the Lord loves you and is keeping the oath that he swore to your fathers, that the Lord has brought you out with a mighty hand and redeemed you from the house of slavery, from the hand of Pharaoh king of Egypt." Did you catch that? He loves them because.......He loves them. There is no reason why. He just does. That is unconditional love. We as humans can't love like that. Because of our sin, there are all sorts of conditions on our love. Even in the best of marriages, husbands and wives love conditionally, and probably more often and in more ways than they would like to admit.

So as I sit there tomorrow night and watch (and probably cry) as my two very good friends are wed, I will be joyful for what is happening. It is a picture of the gospel. It is a picture of sacrificial love. But this joy, as beautiful and deep and as real as it will be, is but a foreshadow, a small glimpse of what it will be like that great day when we are wed to our groom in glory! We are his bride, he has chosen us and loved us, just because he has. There are no conditions. With that in mind, shouldn't our only response be to love him back and to give him the affections that we give so many other less-deserving things here on earth? I hope and pray that it would be so, and in increasing measure!

posted by corbs @ 9:53 AM