Mostly, I love hearing my husband speak
words of hard-won wisdom over the bride and groom. As I listen, I fidget with
the wedding band on my ring finger, remembering when we were the ones speaking
vows to one another. In my heart, I silently affirm them again.
Now, at each wedding, I still look for
the groom. When the bride enters in a dazzling array of white and lace, I stand
on tiptoe to peek at him. I watch his face fill with uncontainable joy as he
watches his bride approach. This beauty is mine, he seems to say. There
is unabashed intimacy between them as they meet together and join hands,
preparing to join lives.
Weddings are solemn moments of
commitment and joyous celebrations at the same time. And the cake is usually
really, really good. But our modern celebrations are mute compared to the
engagement period and weddings that occurred in biblical times.
Then, everything started with a
betrothal period. When the bride and bridegroom became betrothed, unlike our
engagements today, it was a binding commitment. But they did not yet move-in
together or consummate the relationship. The bride remained at her parents’ home
while the bridegroom prepared a home where they would live together.
Traditionally, he would spend several
months building an addition onto his father's house. The bride, not sure when
her bridegroom would come for her, prepared herself for him and waited, always
at the ready. Finally, when the preparations were completed, the bridegroom
would start for his bride. As he approached her parents’ house, their friends
and other townspeople announced his coming by shouting, "The bridegroom is
coming! The bridegroom is coming!" The bride, hearing the shouts, knew her
day had come. They would soon be married and off to the wedding supper, a
celebration that traditionally lasted for days.
I can just imagine the fanfare. Surely
everyone in the village stood on tiptoe, looking for the bridegroom and searching
his face as he passed on the way to claim his bride. The men must have smiled,
patting him on the back. The women, remembering their own wedding days, must
have dabbed away tears of joy as he walked by.
In John 14:2-3, Jesus implies that He is
a Bridegroom:
In my Father's house
are many mansions, if it were not so, I would have told you. I go to prepare a
place for you. And if I go and prepare a place for you, I will come again and
receive you to Myself; that where I am, there you may be also.
He is not the modern bridegroom who
shows up at the church 30 minutes before the ceremony wearing a rented
polyester suit and a nervous grin. He is the Jewish bridegroom, committed to His
bride and preparing to claim her.
Though our modern eyes miss the
implication in John 14, His audience would have understood immediately. As they
listened, fidgeting with the wedding bands on their fingers, they would have
remembered their own wedding days, filled with unabashed intimacy and promise
fulfilled.
Might they have been confused? Jesus—the
living, breathing, walking, talking, touchable God—a Bridegroom? Could a pure
God truly delight in taking a once-promiscuous people as His own bride?
Might He love with that kind of love?
Yes, Jesus said, in calling Himself a Bridegroom, I do.
And then He proved it. He initiated the
betrothal at His death, staking His claim on us, and making a binding
commitment to us.
He went away to His Father's house to
prepare a home for us.
One day, one glorious day, He will come
for us. The trumpets, taking the place of the shouting villagers, will announce
His approach: The Bridegroom is coming! The Bridegroom is coming!
We, His bride, will stand on tiptoe,
looking for His face, searching for the joy we are sure to find.
