Here Comes The Bride!

I guess it is because I am getting older, which is something that all of us are doing if we are alive, and maybe I just notice things more than I used to. But weddings are not as bad as I once thought they were. I know, I know, some of you reading this are appalled that I would not like to go to a wedding of a close friend that is the happiest days of their lives. OK you're right, normally I don't like to go because it is NOT the happiest day of my life. Let's face it you go to a wedding, you know a handful of people, you watch other people that are much closer to the wedding party and you get to observe it all. Normally you hear this song that you can't sing called "Here Comes The Bride!"

Now don't get me wrong, I'm not complaining, really I am not, it's just a fact. You go, you sit, you listen, you applaud at the appropriate time, maybe chuckle along the way and if you are lucky you stay for the cake at the end. Now that's a plus! However, weddings within themselves have not been my forte if you will. That has been up to the last 2 years now.

I have seen several of my youth that have been involved in my youth ministry grow up and get married. I have conducted the wedding ceremonies of both of my children, cried in both of them! To witness the groom as he sees his bride coming down the isle all smiles and filled with excitement is a wonderful thing.

This last weekend I went to a dear friend's daughter's wedding. It was HOT and outside, but no matter. The bride arrived with her father in a horse drawn carriage as everyone was looking on. The father of the bride gave away his only daughter to a young man that well, this is the only girl and if you are the father of a daughter know this, any guy is only one step above an orangutan, and my apologies to the monkey! At the reception of this wedding the brother of the bride sang a song to the newly wed couple and he rocked! She kissed him and said thank you. The father of the bride did the traditional dance with the bride with a twist, he sang to her the Steven Curtis Chapman song, "Cinderella" to her live while he danced! How do you do that?

The reception was fun, loud, dancing and celebrating the wedding that had just taken place.

This of course reminds me of Christ and the church. How that the bride, the church, is in preparation for the marriage feast. I think of how the father is preparing the bride, the church, for that final day. The Bible is full of scripture that tell us the church is like a bride adorned for the groom. How that Jesus' first miracle was at a wedding feast, or reception, in Canna. The church is to be pure for the groom. The purity is only through the blood of Christ. It is for the church to mature and grow and to bring as many people into the fold as we can, not for the growth of the church but for the one and only Jesus Christ.

So today as I think of the beautiful wedding that I just witnessed I think of the day the celebration will last forever when we don't hear "Here Comes The Bride!" but the groom will appear to take his church home. Oh happy day.