Jesus Came to Prepare His Bride

   

Today is my parents’ sixty-seventh wedding anniversary. I had a hard time finding a good card this year to fully express my gratitude to them and to express my heartfelt sentiments of congratulations. So I settled for a lighthearted one instead that might provide them with a little laugh. I’m giving them one of those simple cards with a familiar message you’ve probably seen. It says, “Happy Anniversary to you and your better half.” Then on the inside it adds, “You two can decide who’s who.” Even after sixty-seven years, that could still stir up a little debate.

We don’t typically think of a wedding in relation to Christmas unless we chose to get married around that time. Even then we don’t usually connect the union of a bride and groom to the birth of Jesus which we are celebrating. However, maybe we should. The Bible certainly draws a link between the two. One of the main reasons Jesus came into this world was to get us ready for our wedding. What am I talking about?

One of the primary analogies Scripture uses to depict our relationship with Christ is that of a bride and groom or a wife and husband. Our relationship should be one of love, devotion, commitment, and faithfulness, much like in a marriage. At the end of this age, Christ will return for His bride, the Church. The book of Revelation pictures our union with Christ at that time as a marriage: “Let us be glad and rejoice and give Him glory, for the marriage of the Lamb has come, and His wife has made herself ready” (Revelation 19:7).

Are we getting ready for our wedding? Think about how a bride goes to such efforts to prepare for her wedding day. Are we seeking to make ourselves presentable and pleasing to our Groom? We can’t do it in ourselves. Therefore Jesus came into this world in order to make us the fit bride He calls us to be. Look at how the Bible describes it: “Husbands, love your wives, just as Christ also loved the church and gave Himself for her, that He might sanctify and cleanse her with the washing of water by the word, that He might present her to Himself a glorious church, not having spot or wrinkle or any such thing, but that she should be holy and without blemish” (Ephesians 5:25-27).

We often think of the purpose of Jesus’ birth in relation to His death on the cross – that He came in order to give His life. That’s true, but let’s not stop there. This passage in Ephesians indicates that the reason He gave Himself for us is to prepare us for our wedding with Him. He calls us to be a pure, holy, glorious church – a calling which we’re falling woefully short of today. The only way we can become such a beautiful bride is through Christ transforming us based on what He did for us at the cross where He died as the sacrifice for our sins. He came so that we can be cleansed of our sins. He came not only to forgive us and make us appear clean in Him, but also to actually transform us, our character, and our behavior to become a more holy people. Right now we should be experiencing an ongoing change in our lives as our Groom keeps working to get rid of any spots or wrinkles in our lives and in His church as a whole to make us an unblemished bride.

There is no doubt who will always be the better half in our relationship with Christ. However, He came to make us a better bride. Let’s cooperate with Him as He gets us ready for our wedding.