When the Bride is Ready

When Lynne and I found ourselves on our honeymoon on a beach in Cancun, Mexico, the day after we were married, we sat there in silence.  For quite a while.  For the last nine months, it felt like the only thing we had talked about with each other were wedding preparations.  An enormous amount of details to cover, with little family help.  Setting a date.  Securing the church.  Making sure everyone could make it.  Settling on invitations.  Choosing the wedding party.  Finding a dress.  And finding a dress for her, too.  Just kidding.  Registering.  Premarital counseling which we discovered was basically a waste of time (as it is for most soon-to-be-marrieds).

                Honestly, guys generally get off the hook pretty easy compared to their brides.  Even though we pretend to have a say in things, we know better.  She gets the final say.  Her vote is worth ten times ours.  There’s a lot more on the bride’s plate than on the groom’s.  There is much preparation to be made, and mostly by the bride.

                Most people who become familiar with the love story between God and people as experienced and recorded by ancient Jewish communities come across a strong metaphor in the prophetic writings of Ezekiel and others.  The prophet Ezekiel senses God giving him an image and a message to convey to the people of Israel who have suffered exile: God views his people as a woman he nurtured from infancy who, at the proper time, was as a bride to God himself, adorned in beauty and purity.

                This theme is picked up again in various places in the New Testament, and at the very end of the Christian Bible.  The Apostle John wrote a letter called Revelation while exiled on a penal colony/island called Patmos (think Alcatraz without cells).  The book was written with very familiar imagery for people who lived under Roman rule.  Some of the book reads like a weird, tripped-out science fiction novel that Lewis Carroll could have written with a few more hits…  But to the ancient reader, it made perfect sense.

                One of the images that shows up toward the very end of the letter is that of a bride.  Specifically, the bride of Christ.  She is the Church, the community of those who love and serve God by loving the Groom, Christ.

                Within the last 50 years or so, as we’ve become more aware of the state of our world and her people, there has been a steady interest in the Book of Revelation, because from an apocalyptic perspective, it tells how God is going to wrap this story of ours up.  Maybe the strong interest is there because it feels like the world has gone to hell, and we’re waiting to be rescued.  That’s the tone of much of the interpretation: we wait for the groom to come and sweep us off our feet and make it all better.

                But that’s not the only way to read it.  Toward the climax of the story, in Revelation 19:7 we read that the bride has prepared herself for the groom.  She has been given the clothes to wear, but she has put them on.  She has a role to play in order for the wedding ceremony to commence.  Sure, the whole thing has been bankrolled by the Father of the Groom, but there’s still much to be done by the bride if she ever wants the marriage to happen.

                What if that’s the whole point?  What if, all this time, we were supposed to be working toward bringing more and more of the Way, Truth, and Life of Christ into the world?  What if we have been given the wardrobe, but it is up to us to get dressed: Since God chose you to be the holy people he loves, you must clothe yourselves with tenderhearted mercy, kindness, humility, gentleness, and patience. (Colossians 3:12).  Maybe the reason this brings about the arrival of the groom is because it brings about everything that is the groom into being.  Our role as the Bride is to prepare ourselves and our world for the Groom.  We do that by bringing more and more of the Way, Truth and Life into the world.

                In an everyday human marriage, both partners have to do their best to love and serve the other toward their wholeness, completeness, and best in order for the relationship to really reach it’s potential (see Ephesians 5:21).  Disaster strikes when one person waits for the other to carry the full load while they just sit there.  It doesn’t work in life, and it doesn’t work in faith.  As James aptly phrased it, faith without works is dead (James 2:20).

                As you consider your faith, may you begin to see yourself as part of the Bride of Christ.  How are you doing on the preparations that will bring about his coming?  How well are you holding up your end of the covenant?

                For further reading and a potent slap in the face, read Ezekiel 16, asking God to reveal any similarities between yourself and the indictment leveled again ancient Israel.  Where have you been faithful?  Where have you prostituted yourself?  What’s your next move?