Preparing the Bride

Last Sunday, Pastor Julian Lowe was a guest speaker at my church and preached a message called Dressed for the Occasion. He spent much of the sermon talking about the Church as the Bride of Christ and the way Jesus is preparing His Bride for His return. I was familiar with the passages he used and certainly familiar with the language of the Church being Christ’s Bride, but something about the way he brought those ideas together stayed with me after the service.

One of the things he talked about was how easy it can be to become better at serving Jesus without necessarily becoming better at knowing Him. That challenged me because so much of the Christian life can easily be measured by what we do. We serve, study Scripture, pray, give, teach, lead, disciple, attend church, and try to be faithful with whatever God has put in front of us. Scripture gives us plenty of reason to take those things seriously, so I don’t think the problem is that we’re doing them. I started wondering whether the problem comes when doing them becomes the primary way we understand our relationship with Christ.

I started wondering whether the problem comes when doing them becomes the primary way we understand our relationship with Christ.

Pastor Julian connected that thought to Genesis and the creation of humanity in the image of God. That sent me back to something that is easy to overlook when thinking about purpose. When God created Adam and Eve, He certainly gave them something to do. They were to be fruitful, exercise dominion, and care for what God had made. But Genesis 1:26-28 begins with who they were created to be: human beings made in the image and likeness of God.

I’ve spent a lot of time over the years thinking and praying about purpose, calling, gifts, and what God wants me to do. I still think those are worthwhile questions. What I’m reconsidering is whether I sometimes move to them too quickly. If God’s work in His people includes conforming us to the image of His Son, as Paul writes in Romans 8:29, then what God is doing in me can’t be separated from what He is doing through me. The person doing the work matters too.

That gave me a different way of thinking about the rest of Pastor Julian’s sermon because he eventually moved from the image of God in Genesis to the image of a bride preparing for her bridegroom. The Bible uses several pictures to help us understand our relationship with God, and each tells us something different. We are children of God. Jesus calls His followers servants and friends. Paul describes the Church as the Body of Christ and believers as ambassadors. None of those images competes with the others, but I realized that I tend to think more naturally in terms of the ones that tell me what I am supposed to do.

Marriage gives us another way of thinking about that relationship. It still carries responsibility, but it also speaks about covenant, belonging, faithfulness, love, and anticipation. I had always appreciated the Bride of Christ as beautiful biblical imagery, but I don’t know that I had spent much time considering why marriage is used to describe the relationship between Christ and His Church, or what that means for the way we live while waiting for Him.

Pastor Julian spent part of the message explaining ancient Hebrew wedding customs and drawing parallels between those customs and the language Jesus and the New Testament writers use. The basic picture he presented was of a marriage covenant being established, a bridegroom departing for a time while preparations were made, and a bride living in anticipation of his return. He connected that waiting period with Jesus’ words to His disciples and with the Church waiting for Christ to return.

The imagery isn’t limited to that historical background. Marriage and covenant already appear together throughout Scripture. The Old Testament uses marriage imagery to describe God’s covenant relationship with Israel. Jesus refers to Himself as the bridegroom. Paul uses marriage to talk about Christ and the Church in Ephesians 5 and eventually says that the mystery he is describing refers to “Christ and the church.” By the time we reach Revelation, the imagery has become a wedding, with the marriage supper of the Lamb and a Bride who has made herself ready.

That makes John 14 especially interesting to revisit.

Jesus is preparing His disciples for His departure when He tells them not to let their hearts be troubled. He speaks of His Father’s house, tells them that He is going to prepare a place for them, and promises, “I will come again and will take you to myself, that where I am you may be also.” I’ve usually read that passage primarily as a promise about heaven, and it certainly gives us hope about what is ahead. Hearing it alongside the bridal imagery made me notice something else in Jesus’ words. He isn’t only talking about where His disciples will eventually be. He is talking about being together again.

He isn’t only talking about where His disciples will eventually be. He is talking about being together again.

The promise is, “I will take you to myself.”

Later in John, as Jesus continues preparing His disciples for His departure, He tells them that He will not leave them as orphans and promises the Holy Spirit, who will dwell with them and be in them. Paul later describes the Spirit as the guarantee of our inheritance until we acquire possession of it (Ephesians 1:13-14). Pastor Julian connected that language with the pledge associated with the wedding imagery he had been describing. What caught my attention was the larger picture. Jesus tells His followers that He is leaving, promises that He will return for them, and doesn’t leave them alone while they wait. His Spirit is with them.

That waiting is where we find ourselves too. We know Christ has come. We believe He died and rose again, and we believe He will return. But we wake up tomorrow morning somewhere between those events, and there will probably be work to do, people who need something from us, responsibilities that don’t feel particularly spiritual, temptations we thought we would have outgrown by now, and another opportunity to decide what faithfulness looks like today.

If Scripture wants us to understand the Church as a Bride awaiting her Bridegroom, then waiting for Christ can’t simply mean knowing that He will return someday. There is something happening in His people while we wait. Paul speaks about being transformed into Christ’s image, Jesus speaks about abiding in Him, and Revelation eventually shows us a Bride who has made herself ready.

I know how to ask whether I’m serving Christ and whether I’m being faithful with what He’s given me. Those are questions I don’t want to stop asking. Pastor Julian’s sermon left me with another one that I don’t think I’ve asked nearly as often: While I’m waiting for Christ, am I becoming more like the One I’m waiting for?

While I’m waiting for Christ, am I becoming more like the One I’m waiting for?

…just a thought.