Notes From The Wedding Guest

 These past holidays I’ve had the pleasure and honor of attending two weddings of Christian friends. Weddings are beautiful, they offer so much love, joy and excitement, the party and  the dancing, the food and  frills, family and friends all gathered to celebrate the love of their loved ones. It is all spectacular! Yet that it not what I love most about weddings

My favorite part of weddings are the vows, the promises, the I will spend all my days with you, the fact that the wedding day echoes the beginning of marriage.  I am in awe of two people calling all their closest friends and family asking them to be witnesses to their lifelong commitment to each other, promising to forsake all others and to devote themselves wholeheartedly to one another. It is simply incredible. 

If two broken, sinful human beings can make a commitment, to each other, if they can say for richer or poor, in sickness and in health, to love and to cherish till death do us part.  I am stunned. Marriage means that you become one, your burdens are mine, mine are yours. Marriage means I will care for you as much as I care for myself. I cannot help but ask if we as broken and sinful people can make such promises, and actually hold to them, how much more can our Lord Jesus Christ keep the promises he has made to us. Therefore these human promises  ultimately draw me back to (as it should) Jesus, the  ultimate bridegroom

 Consider this: Christ is holy and without blemish. We are a sinful and broken people—yet He still makes vows to us. He binds Himself to us in a covenant. In this covenant, He ransoms us by dying the death we deserve. He bears the wrath of God the Father. But He does not stay dead—He rises. And through His resurrection, we too will one day rise. Jesus gives us His holiness. He takes on our sin. He takes our place and, in return, gives us eternity with Him. The Holy One claims a sinful and broken people as His own. I can’t help but be in awe. Earthly marriage discriminates—it chooses one over all others. But Christ gives an open invitation for all to become part of the Church. One day, at His return, the Church will celebrate as His bride. If we choose to follow Him, we too must forsake our old ways and become one with Him.

Now Jesus is at the right hand of God and one day our bridegroom, will comeback to claim his bride (us, we are his bride) and there will be the most amazing wedding feast, we shall ever know

As Revelation 19:7–9 declares: “Let us rejoice and exult and give him the glory, for the marriage of the Lamb has come, and his Bride has made herself ready... Blessed are those who are invited to the marriage supper of the Lamb.”

So yes, without a doubt earthly weddings and marriages are beautiful, and at these weddings there were moments I felt myself at the brink of tears. The love of the couples was evident and the fact of their commitment commendable. Yet they are only a shadow, a signpost points to the greater love, greater commitment of our heavenly bridegroom Jesus Christ. May all our celebration of the love and commitment of our friends point us to him