The Bridal Path Church on the Rise Bassendean 6.7.14
Genesis 2:15-25; Psalm 45; Rev 19:6-11; 21:1-4, 9-11
Introduction
When Donnas’ long service leave application was coming up she expressed a desire to visit the Greek islands. I pounced at the opportunity and said let’s do the 7 churches of Revelation region in Turkey and drop across to the island of Patmos where the apostle John had his end-times vision. I always sensed that our going away together was important and we started to pray about the trip months in advance.
Turkey has about 3,500 Protestants amongst a population of 80 million with an increasingly strong Islamic presence and believers have been martyred there in recent years. At the only Turkish speaking Anglican Church in the world I had a conversation with a Moslem convert who came to Christ through a dream of the resurrection, his family threw him out. We met two Western women in their 70’s who had seen a congregation grow from a small house meeting to the largest in the country, government spies attend the church but they see this as another evangelistic opportunity. We met a missionary who cares for a group that gathers in a hotel, a Turkish pastor ha planted a congregation in a shopping centre where I preached. Attempts to plant another church failed through police harassment and dangers to family. Overall our time in Turkey was illuminating but highly stressful for our marriage because of a host of scary experiences on the road. Donna and I are experienced enough to prayerfully understand that such pressures are a preparation for a revelation.
The atmosphere on the quiet little Greek island of Patmos was totally different. Donna was able to go for multiple swims and we hired a quad bike for touring. On Patmos the Spirit began to speak with me about the deepest and most difficult of human relationships, marriage, and about the connection between earthly marriages and the heavenly wedding of Christ and his Bride the Church. The Bible begins and ends with marriages (Gen 2; Rev 19).
In the Beginning
God was the joyous celebrant of the first marriage in Eden. When Adam was paired with Eve he was so excited, “At last!”…“This one is bone from my bone, and flesh from my flesh! She will be called ‘woman,’ because she was taken from ‘man.’” (Gen 2:23). Adam and Eve knew that they had been brought together and were held together by the love of God. This brought their heavenly Father great joy (cf. Prov 8:30-31; Acts 17:28).
Soon however the happy couple started to behave as if their marriage was all about themselves. When Satan suggested they could become “like God” by breaking the command of God everything started to fall apart (Gen 3:5). They felt ashamed of one another, fearful of God and when confronted with sin threw accusations and blame at each other (Gen 3:12). All the typical problems of marriage began when men and women moved away from the glory of God’s presence in Eden (Rom 3:23).
The Bible holds Adam primarily responsibility for the corruption of human marriage for God warned Adam not to eat of the tree of knowledge even before Eve was created (Gen 2:17; Rom 5:12ff; 1Cor 15:12; 1 Tim 2:13, 14). Instead of standing up as a man and confronting the tempter Adam passively allowed Satan to deceive his wife. Ever since then most men have lacked spiritual confidence in their marriages. My father showed no sign of being the spiritual head of the home. Many Christian (even leaders) struggle with a sense of spiritual inferiority that blocks them leading their wives in God’s Word and prayer. “Hard to believe I know”, but I had huge struggles in this area in the early years of being with Donna. The Bible’s remedy for the lost glory of marriages is intensely spiritual and not easy to understand.
Even though he was a single man the apostle Paul’s teaches with great spiritual insight; “Therefore a man shall leave his father and mother and hold fast to his wife, and the two shall become one flesh.” This mystery is profound, and but I understand it to mean Christ and his church.” (Eph 5:31-32). Ordinary human marriages were always designed to point to the eternal marriage between Jesus and the Church and to draw their strength from Christ the perfect Husband.
Someone recently related to me that of all the things he had heard me teach over the years the connection between earthly marriage and our marriage to Jesus was the most difficult to absorb. It was no secret between us that the primary reason for such a struggle was that this person’s former marriage was excruciatingly painful.
Before we get to Jesus and the Church we must touch on how the Lord took the whole nation of Israel as a wife through covenant. This is perhaps the most “human” dimension of the revelation of God’s character in the Old Testament.
Israel
The Lord speaks with great tenderness of a honeymoon period, ““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.”” (Jer 2:2). Almost immediately however the tone changes to pain, ““Face the awful sins you have done. You are like a restless female camel desperately searching for a mate. 24 You are like a wild donkey, sniffing the wind at mating time. Who can restrain her lust?”” (vv.23-24). Israel had an unquenchable appetite for idols and by betraying her covenant partner becomes an adulteress (Jer 3:9; 5:7; Ezek 16:32; 23:37; Hos 2:2). So sharp is God’s suffering at his wife’s adultery that he commands Hosea, “‘Go, marry a promiscuous woman and have children with her, for like an adulterous wife this land is guilty of unfaithfulness to the Lord.’” (1:2). Hosea goes off and marries a woman who keeps running away and sleeping with other blokes. Only by personally experiencing the pain of infidelity could the prophet speak of the LORD’s anguish at being betrayed by his covenant partner Israel.
Thankfully other prophets speak of a coming time when the marriage between God and his people shall be renewed, Jerusalem’s “new name will be “The City of God’s Delight” and “The Bride of God,” for the Lord delights in you and will claim you as his bride.”” (Isa 62:4). This beautiful image of endless marital bliss awaited the coming of the Messiah.
Jesus and the Church
John the Baptist, who does not have a reputation for being a party goer, blurts out these words concerning the coming of Jesus, ““The one who has the bride is the bridegroom. The friend of the bridegroom, who stands and hears him, rejoices greatly at the bridegroom’s voice. Therefore this joy of mine is now complete.”” (John 3:29). John is excited because Jesus has power to destroy all Satan’s efforts to spoil the beauty of God’s bride (1 John 3:8). Sin, sickness and death submit to the authority of Christ’s command. This was a happy time for Jesus and he spoke of his presence with friends in terms of rich marital joy; “Can the wedding guests fast while the bridegroom is with them? As long as they have the bridegroom with them, they cannot fast.” (Mark 2:19). Only one miracle of Jesus appears in all four Gospels (Matt 14:13-21; Mark 6:32-44; Luke 9:10-17; John 6:1-13). The feeding of the 5,000 has special significance because it is symbolises the long awaited messianic banquet, a heavenly Bridal Supper of endless love (Isa 25:6-8).
Miracles are wonderful, but they rarely transform the conscience, to convince Israel and the nations that God is a truly loving husband Jesus must die. At the Last Supper the Lord opens his heart to the disciples, “I have eagerly desired to eat this Passover with you before I suffer. For I tell you I will not eat it until it is fulfilled in the kingdom of God.” (Luke 22:15-16). Jesus is saying that he must accomplish what the Passover lamb could never achieve, the heavenly banquet to come must be the marriage supper of the Lamb of God for he is the sacrificial Lamb whose death must take away the sins of the world (John 1:29). His body must be broken and his blood shed to create a new an unbreakable marriage covenant of unlimited forgiveness between God and his people (Luke 22:19-20; Jer 31:31-34).
In marriage a man and a woman pledge themselves to each other in the most extraordinary terms. In Australia marriage is defined by law as “the union of a man and a woman to the exclusion of all others, voluntarily entered into for life.” The promise “for better, for worse, for richer, for poorer, in sickness and in health, until death do us part.” echo the sort covenant promises God has always made to his people. At the heart of the pain of marriage disappointment is broken promises. The only answer to the deep suspicion of the human heart that God’s promises are not for real is the cross.
When Jesus cries out from the cross, ““My God, my God, why have you forsaken me?”” (Mark 15:34) it seems that God’s promise never to leave or forsake his people are false (Josh 1:5; Ps 37:25). Jesus feels abandoned by the covenant Husband of Israel. Yet what is actually happening is that Christ is taking into himself the totality of the pain of all the broken relationships of humanity plus the pain of betrayal God had long felt has at the hands of his covenant people (2 Cor 5:21; 1 Pet 2:24). The radical love of God means it is necessary for Messiah/Son of God to be crucified at the instigation of his Father’s own wife, Israel! Jesus suffers so totally that the joy of his Bride might never end. Going into the tomb he buries the power of sin, Satan and death, rising from the dead he raises his people into an everlasting bond that can never be broken (Heb 13:20). To know that you are betrothed to Jesus will affect you powerfully.
Be Prepared
Paul passionately challenges the Corinthians, “I feel a divine jealousy for you, since I betrothed you to one husband, to present you as a pure virgin to Christ. But I am afraid that as the serpent deceived Eve by his cunning, your thoughts will be led astray from a sincere and pure devotion to Christ.” (2 Cor 11:2-3 ESV). In Revelation Jesus rebukes the church in Ephesus for abandoning their first love (Rev 2:4); they still loved him, but they were no longer passionately “in love” with their Saviour. When you are “in love” with someone you will do anything to please them.
Our nation is drowning in a flood of marriages that have never reached their God-given potential. Whatever we have experienced of marriage, our parents , our own, of others, the desire God implanted in human beings for a wedded state of pure love, joy and faithfulness can only be fulfilled through the perfect Love of Jesus. “Christ loved he Church and gave up his life for her” (Eph 5:25). Through the lens of the cross the vision of the marriage at the End of the Bible is more real than anything we have ever experienced on earth; “the Bride, the wife of the Lamb.”…coming down out of heaven… having the glory of God, its radiance like a most rare jewel, like a jasper, clear as crystal.” (Rev 21:9-11) This is a vision about you and me – this picture of infinite beauty is our bridal destiny! It is the vision we need for marriages today. How does this vision become more real to us than the dramas of everyday life? The answer is given from heaven, ““These are the ones coming out of the great suffering. They have washed their robes and made them white in the blood of the Lamb.” (Rev 7:14).
Conclusion
If you have suffered greatly in relationships you are an excellent candidate to have your robes washed in the blood of your betrothed, Jesus the Lamb. To have your robes washed in his blood is to have his sacrificial death cleanse you from the shame and stain of both your own sins and also the sins of others against you; particular the very deep pains that come through covenant failure (Eph 1:7; 5:26; Heb 9:22-10:18; Rev 1:5). There is no limit, NO LIMIT, to the power of the blood of Jesus to free the human conscience from its shame and to set the heart on fire with forgiveness.
Here we are in the middle of Bassendean, a little town put on the world map by “the boy from Basso” Rolf Harris. In the light of his conviction for child sex offences can you imagine how much shame is in this man’s marriage! If he turns to the Lord in repentance the blood of the cross is powerful enough to immerse “even” Rolf Harris in the infinite love of Jesus for his Bride and heal this man’s life and his marriage. There are no relational failures so deep that they cannot be healed by the power of the gospel (Rom 1:16). One thing remains to be said for our deliverance.
I caught up with a Christian friend this week who described to me how he recently had a heart attack in the bush 90 kms from Perth. In great pain a scripture came into his mind, “This poor man cried, and the Lord heard him and saved him out of all his troubles.” (Ps 34:6). He cried out in prayer at the top of his voice and God indeed saved him; for Christ will never ever abandon his Bride. If you cry out to the Lord he will hear you and he will deliver you! This promise at the very end of the Bible is for us, “The Spirit and the bride say, “Come.” Let anyone who hears this say, “Come.” Let anyone who is thirsty come. Let anyone who desires drink freely from the water of life.” (Rev 22:17).