Here Comes the Bride

Think of a time when you went to the most engaging wedding you've ever attended. Can you describe the feelings you felt, the images you saw, the food you tasted, and the sounds you heard? My guess is that all of your senses were engaged--even smells. The younger people are donning fragrances from Gucci and Versace, while the older crowd may have a concoction of Old Spice aftershave and rose-scented Elizabeth Taylor (I've been to a lot of weddings as a pastor).

Maybe, by the time you get to the reception, there's an incredible spread of food and drink. Perhaps, there are different cultural delicacies than your own--Scandinavian, Laotian, Indian, Soul, Italian, or Latin foods. There's all kinds of music genres represented on the dance floor. Hopefully, it's not just "YMCA."

Hopefully, you're smiling now as you think back to the experience you remember. You should. A wedding is supposed to evoke joy within us. We can't help it. It's how God has wired us, because it's a theme that has been woven throughout the narrative of the Bible.

• Creation begins with a wedding (Adam & Eve) and it's very good.
• God establishes a covenant with Abraham and subsequently, his descendants.
• God rescues those descendants from slavery, and makes vows/commitments with them (i.e. 10 commandments).
• Even though Israel neglects those commitments, God is faithful to the people.
• Jesus arrives and performs his first miracle at a wedding in Cana.
• Jesus uses wedding imagery to describe going to prepare a place for us.
• The New Heaven and New Earth in the "end" of the story is a bride beautifully dressed for her husband--Jesus--who returns to us.

Maybe the song should be, "Here comes the groom!"

The story of scripture begins and ends with a wedding. It's because a wedding brings joy. Joy is experienced in the Creation, but even more joy is experienced in the New Creation that you and I have only begun to realize.

But, here's where we have to stop and ask ourselves a question. Why would the story "end" with a wedding? Perhaps, you've noticed that I've put the word "end" in quotation marks three times now, including this sentence.

You don't attend a wedding to celebrate the end of that couple's relationship, do you? Of course not, it's just the beginning. They have a story to journey through for the rest of their lives. So, why would Revelation--the "end" of the Bible--use the illustration of a wedding? I thought Revelation was all about the "end times?" I bet you're catching on! It's just the beginning of New Creation. "End times" is an incomplete and confusing term. It's better known as eschatology, which describes the end of an age only to make way for a new age (don't confuse that with new age spirituality).

If there's an end to anything, it's an end to our pain and suffering. It's not about some select group of people flying up into the clouds and playing harps, while the rest of the universe is destroyed. It's God who comes toward us. The apocalyptic literature describes it this way:

"Look, God's home is now among his people! He will live with them, and they will be his people. God himself will be with them. He will wipe every tear from their eyes, and there will be no more death or sorrow or crying or pain. All these things are gone forever." 

-Revelation 21:3-4 NLT

We're now several weeks into COVID-19 and it's caused people to make comments about the end of the world (i.e. the Apocalypse, end times prophecies and predictions, etc.). Typically, these thoughts bring about fear and anxiety and understandably so. They can cause an unhealthy urgency where turning to Jesus feels like getting a "get out of hell free card" more than anything else. It's the same kind of pressure experienced in the Crusades or Manifest Destiny. It misrepresents the character of God. Plus,

"No one knows the day or the hour when these things will happen, not even the angels in heaven or the Son himself. Only the Father knows."

-Matthew 24:36 NLT

The heart of God is to bring a rise in our level of faith, hope, love, and joy--individually and corporately. But, if we're not careful, we'll look at a situation like a global pandemic with total despair. We'll become self-absorbed and myopic in our thinking. We'll get cynical and say things like, "Welp! I guess this is how it's all going to end!?! I hope I make the cut!" We might even think as Christians, "God, just get me outta here; I don't care what you do with everything else!" and forget that the world doesn't revolve around me.

No. That's an incomplete and often misunderstood image of God's plan for our future. But, it sells a lot of books and movies.

Think about this. Why would Jesus spend any time making water into wine at a wedding? Seems like a giant waste of time if it's just about getting souls saved and flying off into another existence. Why else would Jesus heal a crippled hand or a women experiencing lifelong internal bleeding? Why else would Jesus raise Lazarus from the dead? Why would Jesus do any of these things if all creation truly was just going to be destroyed, burned up, done away with, and forgotten? Why wouldn't Jesus just simply do away with all of these earthly troubles and start over from scratch?

Jesus enters the scene when the world is a messed up place and begins to enact restoration and renewal in big and small ways, because the creation he restores was his from the beginning. He doesn't just condemn the brokenness and start over. He sees untapped potential in his unfinished work; not just people, but all creation. He's also giving the people of God glimpses into the greater future planned for us.

"[T]he creation looks forward to the day when it will join God's children in glorious freedom from death and decay," 

-Romans 8:21 NLT. 

That doesn't mean just a bunch of people should now profess Jesus as Lord and Savior so that one day, we are all up in the clouds playing harps. Please, I beg of you, get rid of those images, because they are incomplete and inaccurate. They are inconsistent with the overarching story of the scriptures (More about that HERE).

That's why the image of a wedding is so helpful. It's looking at two people with so much love and joy in their hearts, surrounded by so many others who are there to catch a glimpse of that love and joy. Sure, there's brokenness that they both bring into the relationship, but they're better together. We get to see the potential of that future relationship in a few short moments. We get to hear stories of how the relationship begun and encouragements for what will be. How much more is to be experienced in the wedding of God's broken creation being restored by the perfect unbroken groom in Jesus?

Remember when we were talking about your favorite wedding. It was a party, there was joy, and all of your senses were engaged. The New Creation will include all of those things and more. The arc of scripture shows us this over and over.

• From a garden (Genesis) to a city (Revelation).
• From the wedding of Adam and Eve (Genesis) to a wedding of Heaven and Earth (Revelation).
• From Creation (Genesis) to New Creation (Revelation).

These are images that involve sights, sounds, smells, and sensations of all kinds. And, it's way more exciting than clouds, robes, and harps. Even though that destination is not fully realized in our hearts and minds, we look for ways to bring about New Creation in the world around us today. There's an old saying often attributed to Martin Luther, "If I knew that tomorrow was the end of the world, I would plant an apple tree today" (More about that HERE).




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