I seem to have a knack of having important life moments the same day as moments of national significance. My Institution here, as you might remember, was on the day of the General Election. As it turned out, my 30th birthday also fell on a nationally significant day - the Royal Wedding. As I was saying farewell to my 20s and lamenting the fact that I was an old man of 30, Prince William and Catherine Middleton were getting married.
If you can remember back those 6 years, or maybe even 36 years to Charles and Diana’s wedding day, you’ll know that the wedding was the big thing in all the newspapers and the TV news. All day long, the TV was filled with every detail of the wedding. It’s not every day that a royal wedding comes along, and so (it seemed like) everyone was watching this royal wedding.
Some friends travelled over to London, wanting to be there for the day, even sleeping on the footpath to get a good spot, to catch a glimpse of the bride and groom, the Prince and his new Princess. They were caught up in the excitement of the royal wedding.
As some people said at the time, it was like a fairy tale come true. The Prince had his bride, and they lived happily ever after. Now, normally in a fairy tale, there are some dangers to be faced, an enemy to be overcome, and some excitement along the way. But, when you think of it, even fairy tales point us to the real true story. A prince overcomes his enemies, slays the dragon, and rescues the girl, who becomes his princess. A fairy tale? Maybe, but it’s also the true story of the Bible - what God is doing in the world through Jesus.
And the Bible is moving towards the true fairy tale ending - the real royal wedding, which we hear of in our reading from Revelation. In Rev 19:7 we read these words: ‘Let us rejoice and be glad and give him the glory! For the wedding of the Lamb has come, and his bride has made herself ready.’
All of history is moving towards this royal wedding. The groom is obvious enough - he’s the Lamb. All through Revelation, the Lamb is the Lord Jesus, the one who was slain, the one who has conquered, the one who is getting married. But who is his bride? Who is he getting married to?
Verse 8 gives us a peek of the bridal gown. ‘Fine linen, bright and clean, was given her to wear. (Fine linen stands for the righteous acts of the saints.)’ Notice that the linen, the righteous acts, was given to her to wear. She didn’t make her own dress, it was given to her.
Later in chapter 21 we are given an invitation to see the bride again: ‘Come, I will show you the bride, the wife of the Lamb.’ (21:9) And the description there is of a city, the Holy City, (new) Jerusalem. A cube of a city, as high as it is wide and long; with twelve gates, twelve foundations, a city which is pure, and bright, and clean; dazzling in its beauty, with the precious stones and the streets of gold and the pearly gates.
And you might be thinking - is Jesus marrying a city? But this is picture language - Revelation is like a picture book, as it teaches us truth in vivid imagery. You see, we talk about going to heaven, or meeting in the new Jerusalem, but the truth is - we are that new Jerusalem. The church is the bride of Christ, the wife of the Lamb.
To see that, we need to turn back to Ephesians 5, and what can sometimes be a controversial passage these days. (page 1176). And maybe even before you turn to it, you know which passage it is. It’s the one in which it says: ‘Wives, submit to your husbands as to the Lord...’ It also says, and probably just as difficult: ‘Husbands, love your wives, just as Christ loved the church and gave himself up for her...’
Now, at some point, I promise, we’ll come back to those words when we preach through Ephesians. But for now, I want to focus on verse 31-32.
‘For this reason a man will leave his father and mother and be united to his wife, and the two will become one flesh. This is a profound mystery - but I am talking about Christ and the church.’
As he addresses the theme of marriage, Paul goes right back to the very beginning of the Bible, to Genesis 2. We looked at these words on Thursday night at the Bible study fellowship - you’re very welcome to join us this week as we continue our Bible overview. But Paul takes these words from Genesis 2, about the man leaving his father and mother, and being united to his wife, and the two becoming one flesh. And we take these words as the pattern for marriage, for a lifelong public commitment of one man and one woman, forsaking all others until death.
But Paul says that, yes, they’re about marriage, but at their foundation, they are actually pointing us forward to the marriage of Christ and his church. Every marriage is a pointer towards the marriage of Christ and his church. And every marriage is meant to be a picture of that marriage - sometimes pictures can be out of focus, or distorted, but still, they point towards the real, the true, the perfect.
This helps to explain why marriage here and now is ‘till death us do part.’ John Piper has written a book called ‘this momentary marriage’. Sometimes people find it hard to hear what Jesus says about marriage in heaven, in Matthew 22.
The Sadducees had come to Jesus, trying to make a fool of Jesus, trying to trap him with a story and a question. The seven brothers who each married the same woman when their older brother died. Question - whose wife will she be in the resurrection? (They ask this because they don’t believe in the resurrection, so they’re trying to be ridiculous). Jesus says that ‘At the resurrection people will neither marry nor be given in marriage; they will be like the angels in heaven.’ (Matt 22:30). Why? Well, because Ephesians tells us there is only one marriage in heaven, and we’ll all be involved - the marriage of Christ and his church.
Whether marriage has been part of your experience or not, whether it’s been good, bad or indifferent, we’ll all experience the perfect marriage, the union of Christ and his church. We will be united to Christ, be one with him, dwell with him, not just for a few years, but for ever. That’s the real fairy tale ending, isn’t it? They all lived happily ever after. And it’s for real. For ever. Christ and his church.
We’ve been a bit more all over the place in terms of the Bible tonight than normal - we usually focus on one passage rather than chasing through the Bible - but I hope it helps to see that this idea of the church being the bride of Christ is right through the Bible. And that’s without thinking about our Old Testament reading where the Lord rejoices over Israel, his bride; or when Jesus comes his first miracle is to change water to wine at a wedding; or John the Baptist describing himself as the Best Man, the friend of the bridegroom who has now come; or Paul acting as the matchmaker and wedding planner in 2 Corinthians 11, promising the church to one husband, to Christ, to be presented to him as a pure virgin; or a host of other references we could have looked at.
The thing about weddings is that there is always an invitation. Mr and Mrs so and so invite you to the marriage of their daughter. And then at the bottom there’s the RSVP -Répondez s'il vous plaît - now my French isn’t that good, but it basically means, please respond. Let us know if you’re coming.
Well, the real Royal Wedding is approaching. The Lord Jesus will slay the dragon and rescue his bride. And we are invited to be there are the wedding. Not just as staff at the venue; not just one of the guests at the farthest away table; but as the bride, along with the rest of his church.
And back in Revelation 19:9 we read these words, the true words of God: ‘Blessed are those who are invited to the wedding supper of the Lamb!’ There’s your invitation. The Lord Jesus has pursued you; he has rescued you from the dragon; and wants to make you his, forever.
As the hymn puts it, ‘From heaven he came and sought her to be his holy bride, with his own blood he bought her and for her life he died.’
Are you looking forward to that day? Are you waiting for the wedding of eternity? The Spirit and the Bride say, Come (Rev 22:17). Will you be there on that day? United with your Saviour in his forever home. What a day that will be!
This sermon was preached in St Matthew's Church, Richhill on Sunday evening 17th September 2017.
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