Well this is wedding season. B is off to another wedding tomorrow that I cannot go to because I am on the stag do of another friend who is to marry in a couple of weeks time. I must confess I can be a bit overwhelmed when this season comes around, but on reflection it is fantastic. These are young men and women bucking the trend and marrying before they have moved in together. They are those saying we want to do it God's way.
One of the ways that Jesus is described in the bible is as the bride groom of the church. The one who is in anticipation of his beautiful bride. The one who has sacrificed himself for her. The one who nurtures and cares for her; the one who provides for her and releases her to be all that she was intended to be. He doesn't stifle or hold her back; he does not heap condemnation on her or put her in her place. He is gentle and loving and sets the pace at which the relationship is to go.
A marriage is so much more than a man and a woman saying some stuff and then working it out. It was instituted by God to show us the relationship Christ has with his church. The wife being loved by the husband as Christ loves his church and the woman loving the husband back in gracious and thoughtful submission as the church submits to Christ.
I pray for these couples who are marrying and those who have married recently that their marriages will reflect this mytsterious but wonderful relationship, and that our marriage will be an example to follow.
One day Christ will be united with his bride, on that day there will be a banquet and all those who have followed Christ will be invited, and he, like so many of the bridegrooms I have seen recently, will look on in extreme joy, love and adoration as he receives his prize.
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