The Church, a Beautiful Bride

It was a quiet Saturday morning as the guests began to filter into the little church.  Friends of the couple had been there for hours making sure everything was just perfect.  The guests were a diverse bunch, some were friends of hers, and others were friends of his.  They both had family there as well as friends that they shared.  They were all there from the very old to the very young to celebrate with the couple.  It was a special day, perhaps the most special day in their lives and all those who loved them had come to make it even more special.

Each of the pew markers had been painstakingly created by the bride’s aunt, her mother's sister.  Tiny lace doilies starched to stiff perfection with burgundy bows holding petite ceramic bells in place.  Each one an individual expression of love.  The floral arrangements on the platform had been done by the groom's mother, four baskets overflowing with flowers from the garden which filled their back yard.  Each bloom chosen for its beauty, each one placed with the love that she had given her son through all his years growing up. 

The music had been chosen with an ear to tradition, and with careful attention given to things special to the couple.  The medley of love songs floated over the gathering crowd.  On the eleventh hour the bride groom and his entourage stepped on to the platform.  Fiddling with their hands and looking handsome and awkward in their rented tux's, they wait with baited breath.  With a barely discernible nod the pastor signals the organist who begins to play “ode to joy”.

Through the doors in the rear of the sanctuary step the first of the brides maids and she makes her way down the isle, consciously thinking of the instructions received the night before at the rehearsal.  Step, wait, step, wait, step wait.  Half way down the aisle she is followed by yet another pretty young lady in a matching dress.  Step by step they proceed, being joined by another bride's maid, the flower girl, and then the bride's best friend, now serving as her maid of honour.  The beautiful young ladies join the handsome young men at the platform and the organist finishes with Beethoven.

The Trumpet breaks the still air with a flourish and signals the beginning of the “Trumpet Voluntaire”, the crowd stands as one and even over the sound of brass you can hear a collective intake of breath as the bride steps into the sanctuary.

In the Talmud, the Jewish book of wisdom, the rabbis tell us “On their wedding day all brides are beautiful”.  They're right.  In  over thirty years of pastoral ministry I have performed dozens of weddings, and never once have I ever seen an ugly bride.  It just doesn't happen. 

On the wedding day the bride has made sure that her makeup is perfect, she's gone out and had two hours of intense work done on her hair and make-up.  The dress she is wearing was chosen after hours and hours of soul searching questions, and fears that it just wouldn't say the right thing.  The flowers in her bouquet were selected to perfectly compliment everything from her eyes to her hair to the shade of nail polish she is wearing.  Nothing is left to chance.  Absolutely nothing.  She is going to be radiant when she walks down the aisle and people are going to gasp, and talk about how they have never seen a more beautiful bride.  When her groom looks at her walking toward him, there will be no doubt at all in his mind that he is the luckiest man alive.

The church has long been recognised as the bride of Christ. Paul writes to the church in Corinth and tells them 2 Corinthians 11:2 For I am jealous for you with the jealousy of God himself. I promised you as a pure bride to one husband—Christ.

And we are told in Ephesians 5:25-27 For husbands, this means love your wives, just as Christ loved the church. He gave up his life for her to make her holy and clean, washed by the cleansing of God’s word. He did this to present her to himself as a glorious church without a spot or wrinkle or any other blemish. Instead, she will be holy and without fault.

And we know that the one person the bride wants to be beautiful for on that special day is her groom, but she wants the spectators to know how much she loves her man and so she is looking her very best for the congregation as well.

In the same way that all eyes are on the bride when she walks down the aisle it often seems that the eyes of the world are on the church. And like every bride the church should be most concerned about how she is seen by her groom.  But we need to show the world how important that is to us.  If a bride showed up wearing old tattered clothes and hadn’t washed her hair in a week and smelled bad what would that say to the groom and to their friends?  Oh she could say “It’s what’s inside that counts” or “Don’t judge me”.  But her appearance would be sending a very clear message to the groom and to everyone else. 

In the same way the church should do it’s very best to be and look it’s very best. 

When Paul writes to Titus, he includes a fairly lengthy section on how Christians are to behave, what they are supposed to do what they are not supposed to do.  And then he finishes with these words in Titus 2:10 . . . but must show themselves to be entirely trustworthy and good. Then they will make the teaching about God our Saviour attractive in every way.

At no other time in history has the church been scrutinised more closely concerning the claims of the gospel.  Our outward attitudes and outward appearances are often the only visible means for people to examine us.  And the world holds us to a higher standard than they do other organizations, when a scandal breaks out involving a school teacher or a hockey coach or a scout leader it is a very brief flash in the pan, but the same scandal over someone in the church and it seems to take on a life of its own.  And we should be held to a higher standard, we are the church.

On her wedding day the church will be the most beautiful bride that anyone has ever seen.  Everything will be perfect.  Nothing will be out of place, and the entire universe will gasp as she walks down the aisle toward her bridegroom Jesus Christ.  And as he hears the fanfare and watches her approach he will know that all of his sacrifice and the price that he paid on the cross was worth it, because she is the most beautiful bride that ever was or ever will be.

I’m sure that Jesus could echo the words of King Edward VIII  who said “Of course, I do have a slight advantage over the rest of you. It helps in a pinch to be able to remind your bride that you gave up a throne for her.”  Because of Jesus great love for the world, he gave up all that he was, left his throne and came to earth for his bride, the church.

So how do we, the church, present ourselves to Christ as a beautiful bride? 

The scripture that was read earlier was from the last chapter of the book of Proverbs.  Chapter 31 begins with the words Proverbs 31:1 The sayings of King Lemuel contain this message, which his mother taught him.  And there has been much debate through the years over who he was and who is wasn’t.  Some scholars claim that Lemuel was a wise man who wrote in the style and nature of Solomon.  Others feel that it was written by Solomon himself and that Lemuel was possibly a nickname that his mother had for him.  But that is really irrelevant, I think what is relevant was that it was Lemuel’s mother who asked the question in Proverbs 31:10 Who can find a virtuous and capable wife? And then the King’s mother spends 300 words answering her own question.  And I think that in 2012 the question could be rephrased to read Proverbs 31:10 Who can find a virtuous and capable spouse?   But this morning we are going to focus what the “virtuous and capable bride” looks like as it relates to the bride of Christ.

Now we need to understand that the church’s main obligation is to be the beautiful in the eyes of Christ.  We all understand the reality of “Beauty is in the eye of the beholder”.  And the one we are to be beautiful for is Jesus, but that doesn’t mean we ignore how the world sees us.

There are all kinds of ways that the church can be attractive to people, in attitude, in physical appearance and in the care taken during morning worship.  Because, whether we want to admit it or not, people see Jesus in the local church.  If we appear negligent in how we present ourselves it says something about our view of our Saviour.  Does the face that we present to the community say “We think it is important to do our best for our saviour,” or does it say, “We don’t really care.” 

So let’s begin with Song of Songs 4:10 Your love delights me, my treasure, my bride. Your love is better than wine, your perfume more fragrant than spices.   The Song of Songs or Song of Solomon has long been regarded as an allegory for the Love that God had for Israel and ultimately the love that Christ has for the church. 

1) The Church is to be a Loving Bride  One would think that would go without saying.  In Canada in 2012 we have pretty much moved beyond arranged marriages and forced marriages.  The concept of “we had to get married” is almost a relic of the past, today people marry because they are in love and want to spend the rest of their lives together. 

Unfortunately if we look at the statistics for divorce in our country it would appear that not everyone remains in love.  It seems that if we can fall into love we can also fall out of love. 

I don’t know how many times I have sat across the desk from someone who is trying to explain what has happened to their marriage and they say “I just don’t love them anymore” and sometimes they will go as far as saying “I don’t know if I ever loved them.”  But whatever feeling they experienced as a bride or groom they apparently no longer experience it as a wife or husband.    

Sometimes that happens with churches, in the book of Revelation,  that made everyone perk up didn’t it?  “Oh this is serious, he going to the Revelation.”   In the book of Revelation Jesus sends letters to seven churches in Asia and to the first one is addressed to the church in Ephesus.  This is the same church that the letter of Ephesians was addressed to, and Jesus begins his letter by telling them all of the things that they should be proud of.   And they had a lot to be proud of.  They worked hard at being an ideal church, they didn’t lack in good deeds and moral integrity, they rejected sin from their midst, tested teachers and knew how to separate the true ones from the false ones. And were perseverant to the end.  You gotta love them. 

But then Jesus says  “Whoa, not so fast guys, there’s something else.”  And so here it comes for the Ephesians, Jesus tells them  Revelation 2:4 “But I have this complaint against you. You don’t love me or each other as you did at first!  Ouch.  That’s gotta hurt.  You ever hear those words in a personal relationship, you don’t love me like you used to?  And sometimes they are right, sometimes love fades and disappears.  Maybe because of neglect or apathy, maybe because the person isn’t as lovable as they once were.  But yeah sometimes first love disappears, not necessarily because we want it too and we certainly don’t plan it but it does.  When I’m counselling couples who are struggling in a relationship I will often challenge them to return to their first love. To remember what it was that attracted them to their partner in the first place, to remember how they felt and the commitments they made.  We don’t plan on falling out of love, when we get married we don’t say “Well this will be good for a few years then I’ll fall out of love and move on.”  No in most cases we take serious “Till death do us part”  We believe that our first love will never change.  That’s why Benjamin Disraeli who was the Prime Minister of England in the 1800s said “The magic of first love is our ignorance that it can never end.”

And Jesus is looking at the church and saying, “You don’t love me like you used to.”  And we’re not sure how that love had changed. Some would suggest that the love that was lost was their enthusiasm for the Lord.   A similar analogy is used in the Old Testament, in Jeremiah 2:2 I remember how eager you were to please me as a young bride long ago, how you loved me and followed me even through the barren wilderness.  Often times there is a honeymoon period in a relationship but then the first flush of enthusiasm fades.  Perhaps Jesus is insinuating that the joy and enthusiasm of the Ephesian Church had disappeared.

Kind of like the story told about the old farmer and his wife who were driving along in the pickup one day and she asks, “how come we don’t sit all snuggled up when we drive like we used to?”  to which he replied “I ain’t moved.”

And really how many of us can look back at the hunger with which we devoured the word of God right after our conversion, and the urgency and conviction that we shared the Gospel with our lost family and friends.  But then everything got ordinary, we just kind of drifted along until we lost our first love.

What does it mean to love Jesus?  It’s easy to say “I love you”  but how does that translate into action?   Well Jesus told his apostles in John 14:15 “If you love me, obey my commandments.”

Let’s go back to the scripture we began with in Proverbs 31:27 She carefully watches everything in her household and suffers nothing from laziness.  There was actually an entire section of that proverb that we didn’t read, and it talked about all the things that this wife did.  Kind of reminds me of a plaque my mom had in our kitchen when I was growing up and it said “A man works from sun to sun but a woman’s work is never done.” 2) The Church is to be A Productive Bride.  Periodically we read about churches closing, and it seems that it either happens in the inner city or in small rural communities.  And often we hear that is just the way it happens, that churches can’t survive in either of those situations in 2012.  But that isn’t a reality. 

I can point to churches in small towns that are thriving, churches where people are meeting God and growing in their faith.  Our new church in downtown Halifax, which is just five years old is running close to 300, people are meeting God and growing in their faith.  They are productive churches. 

Churches are supposed to be productive, they are supposed to be growing and they are supposed to be seeing their people growing spiritually.  Because if they are not productive, if they are not growing then they are dying.  It is simple math, if every year a church gets smaller and smaller then it will eventually disappear. 

And finally we read in Proverbs 31:11 Her husband can trust her, and she will greatly enrich his life.  This is probably the most important one, 4) The Church is to be a Faithful Bride There is nothing more devastating in a marriage than adultery.  And people give all kinds of reasons why they cheat and today it is greeted with little more than a nod and a wink.  But 2000 years ago it was considered a serious enough breach in the social fabric to warrant the death penalty. 

And we read in 2 Corinthians 11:2 For I am jealous for you with the jealousy of God himself. I promised you as a pure bride to one husband—Christ.  Not just any bride, but a pure bride, a faithful bride.

Throughout the bible adultery is used in relation to Israel and the church as a euphemism for stepping out on God.  When a church takes a soft stand on sin and refuses to admonish or condemn sin then it becomes unfaithful to the word of God and is in effect committing adultery.

We live in a world where churches all too often would rather preach “love, motherhood and lower taxes” then condemn sin.  They are afraid that they will drive people away if they preach against sin, they are afraid that it will make them unattractive to the world.  And because they are more concerned with pleasing the world than pleasing God they become the unfaithful wife to Christ. 

And while these churches may present what they see as an attractive appearance to the world often the world sees through the hypocrisy to the adultery at the core. 

The concept of biblical and personal holiness is summed up in the word obedience, obedience to the word of God.  And when the word of God is not used as our absolutes as Christians and when we participate in actions that are directly spoken against in the bible then we are unfaithful to Christ.

What do we need to do to be the most attractive bride that we can possibly be for Christ?  Well this passage tells us that we need to submit to him.  One person doesn't make a church but a church is made up of a pile of one persons.  And while we may not be able to change the church individually, individually we can change the church.  And we can make the church a beautiful bride through our individual obedience.  If the rest of the church doesn't come to the party that is their responsibility.  Yours is being obedient on a person level to what Christ wants in your life.