Wedding
Preparations
Weddings
are a big deal in this country. And not
so much the ceremony itself, of course, but all of the extra-curricular activities
that go along with that simple announcement of a man and a woman becoming
husband and wife. There are even quite a
few wedding checklists available that spell out well over 70 different tasks
that need to be taken care of in order to pull off a normal wedding - sometimes
starting 12 months in advance. And so
the bride-to-be usually takes on most of the responsibility of reserving what
needs to be reserved and writing what needs to be written and calling who needs
to be called and meeting with those whom need to be met with and setting up
what needs to be set up… And for the
most part: she doesn’t mind! Because it’s
largely “her day.” She has been dreaming
about this event since she was a little girl and it’s very very important to
her that everything turns out just right.
There are exceptions to this, of course, not every young woman fits into
this mold, but I think it’s safe to say that most brides-to-be in our American
culture are more excited about their weddings than almost any other major event
in their lives.
And, of
course, the wedding day culminates in the reception. The celebration, the party, the gathering of
friends and relatives all at one time and all in one place to congratulate the
bride and groom and to enjoy the entire atmosphere of the entire day. The bride can enjoy things a little bit by
that time too. Because the planning is
over by then, the preparations are done, and all of the organizing and
arranging has paid off. The food tastes
a little richer that night, the music sounds a little sweeter because the event
that she had been anticipating for such a long time has finally arrived.
The Wedding Feast of Heaven
The
Bible describes heaven as a wedding feast of majestic proportions. It is the reception, so to speak, the
celebration of an inseparable union between Groom and bride enjoyed by hundreds
of thousands of Christians all at one time and all in one place. But this gathering of relatives connected by
the strongest of blood won’t have to end when the night gets long. Because there will be no night at this
wedding feast. And this party thrown by
God himself and catered by the angels of Paradise won’t ever get old because it
will continually be new. And you won’t
get tired yourself or annoyed by Uncle Fred or have to avoid cousin Maude or feel
left out of a conversation because those kinds of things can’t happen at this
Reception. And no one will ever have to
get back to “real life” the next day because this is “real life” from now
on. No one will ever have go home
because this is home. No one will ever
be looking for something more or something else because Christ himself will
always be right there in the middle of it all.
In the
revelation that John received from Jesus himself, he heard the sounds of this extraordinary
wedding from a distance: Then I heard
what sounded like a great multitude, like the roar of rushing waters and like
loud peals of thunder, shouting: “Hallelujah!
For our Lord God Almighty reigns.
Let us rejoice and be glad and give him glory! For the wedding of the Lamb has come, and his
bride has made herself ready. Fine
linen, bright and clean, was given her to wear.” (Fine linen stands for the
righteous acts of the saints.) Then the
angel said to me, “Write: ‘Blessed are those who are invited to the wedding
supper of the Lamb!’” And he added, “These are the true words of God.”
This
wedding feast sounds great, doesn’t it?
It sounds like something we don’t want to miss. It sounds like something we want to be at
right now! But do you know what the best
part about this future wedding reception is?
You are the bride-to-be. You are the one for whom this celebration is
thrown. You are the one who is the guest
of honor. And Christ will be your
Groom. And so you have not just been
invited to this wedding feast, it will be your
wedding. Everything has been prepared
for you and your spiritual husband. And
you will be able to enjoy this feast for the rest of eternity.
We are an Unworthy Bride
This
glorious day to come should get you excited!
As the bride-to-be of the ideal husband and the greatest wedding and the
most extravagant reception there will ever be, your face should be beaming
right now, your eyes should be sparkling, and there should be a joy in the way
you live your life that is unmistakable to those around you! But is that really true? Are you really filled with an overwhelming
sense of joy and excitement for this wedding day that you can’t help but show it
on your face and in your voice and throughout your life?
I’m not so
sure that my attitude could be compared to a bride-to-be just weeks away from
the Big Day. I’m happy but I’m not always
that kind of joyful; I’m excited to
get there but I’m not overly enthusiastic all the time; I’m thankful that the
wedding feast of heaven is coming soon but I doubt that people can see that on
my face and hear it in my voice and observe it throughout my life on any given
day. Because I get too distracted with
other things. I get too busy with other
things. I get too tied up in other
things in this world to keep my mind focused on this wedding day to come. And so there are times when I get angry at people
or situations that I probably shouldn’t get angry about at all. There are times when I feel down because some
little thing didn’t go my way. There are
times when I am not all that happy for one ridiculous reason or another. I’m not always that joyful glowing
bride-to-be that can’t think about anything else other than that wedding to
come.
And what
do you think my heavenly Groom is thinking at times like those? He could probably say something like: “Why
are you angry? Our wedding is right
around the corner! Why are you feeling
down? The greatest moment of your life
is almost here! Why aren’t you
happy? What more do you need than
me? Than Paradise? Than a life with your Savior, your brothers
& sisters, and my armies of angels forever?
You’re losing sight of what is important, my bride; you’re forgetting
what is to come; you’re overlooking what I have already guaranteed is yours.”
And if our
Groom said those things he would be right, wouldn’t he? There is no reason for us as brides-to-be of
our Savior himself to ever be angry or sad or unhappy. And what an insult to him when we are! Heaven isn’t enough for us? We need everything to be perfect here as well? A wedding featuring our glorious Lord and the
special union we’ll have with him isn’t big enough for us? We have more important matters to worry about
here? We are the brides-to-be of the
godly Groom! But sometimes we don’t seem
to be satisfied. We don’t seem to be
content with that when we worry about the things of this world.
Our Groom Has
Prepared Everything
And so
what will our Groom do? Will he call off
the wedding? Will he cancel the
engagement and walk away from the promises he has made to us? Will he leave us standing there at the altar,
and rightly so!, because we have not proved ourselves to be worthy brides of
his love? No, instead our Groom will say,
“I will take this frustrated bride; I will accept this ugly bride; I will
welcome this unhappy and discontent and ungrateful bride; I love this unworthy
bride and I will make her mine.” And our
Groom will do that for us because he knew that’s who we were when he promised
his love to us in the first place. He
even prepared for it.
Our
Groom has prepared for it all. He had a
checklist too! He had bunch of different
things that he had to prepare for before our wedding could become a
reality. Item number one on that list:
Create a bride with whom he could share his love. And so he formed Adam and Eve with his own
two hands and prepared a world for them in which they could live in perfect
harmony. Item number two: Save the bride
who had turned her back on him. And so
he came to this earth in the form of a human being and with the name
Jesus. Item number three: Do for the
bride what she could not do for herself.
And so he kept every law and carried out every command and followed
every Word of his Father while on this earth.
Item number four: Take the punishment that his bride deserved. And so our Groom laid down his life for us
and bled to death on a cross. Item
number five: Open the way to the wedding feast in heaven so that his bride
could enter. And so Jesus rose from the
dead. Item number six: Make ready the
place where his bride will live. And so
he ascended up into heaven and prepared Paradise for each one of us. Item number seven: Convince his bride that he
is her Groom. And so he worked faith in
our hearts through the power of the Word of God. Item number eight: Come back for his bride to
take her home. That step is yet to
come. That step is the final check on this
list. But that step is guaranteed to happen
just like the rest of them where.
Our
Groom has prepared for everything so that we don’t have to prepare for anything. We don’t have to make reservations; we don’t
have to make sure that everything is in place; we don’t even have to buy a
wedding dress! Because our Groom has
already supplied us with one: “Fine
linen, bright and clean, was given her to wear” the crowds shouted in
John’s vision. And this “(Fine linen stands for the righteous acts of the saints.)” And understand the analogy: A bride wear
a beautiful white wedding dress on her wedding day. But she isn’t allowed up to the front of the
church because she wears that dress; that dress simply demonstrates who she is:
she is the bride! That is why she is
allowed to go where she belongs. In the
same way, the God-pleasing things we do as Christians don’t get us into the heavenly
wedding feast either; they simply demonstrates who we are: we are the
bride-to-be, the bride ransomed with blood, the bride of Christ.
We Don’t Have
to Worry about a Thing
Remember
this when you leave here this morning.
Because it’s easy to see the big picture in here. It’s not all that difficult to be filled with
joy and eager expectation of the life to come while you are surrounded by those
who are going there with you! But as you
go about your life this week, and as you deal with the normal difficulties and
problems and frustrations that this world is filled with, remind yourself that
you are the bride-to-be, Christ is your Groom, and you don’t have to worry
about a thing. Your Groom has taken care
of it all. He has made you, he has saved
you, he has forgiven you, he has claimed you as his own, he has protected you,
he has prepared for you, and one day he will take you home. There is nothing he has left undone and so
there is nothing that you have to worry about.
And so relax,
take a deep breath, and enjoy looking forward to what you will soon have. No problem here will ever take away Paradise
there. No hardship here will prohibit
you from meeting your husband there. No
sin here will ever supersede the love that your Groom will show to you there. You are his bride-to-be. You are his chosen, precious companion whom
he will never leave, whom he will never let down, whom he will never forget. You are his bride-to-be. I am his bride-to-be. And together, we will celebrate that wedding
feast with our Groom like we have never celebrated before. I’m looking forward to it. Aren’t you?
Amen.
“Hallelujah! For our Lord God Almighty reigns. Let us rejoice and be glad and give him
glory! For the wedding of the Lamb has
come, and his bride has made herself ready.”
- Rev. 19:6-7
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