Printer Friendly VersionA blushing bride, stunning in the beauty of womanhood, radiant
with the joy of being chosen and loved, promenades down the aisle with her
father. A handsome groom fidgets nervously as he watches his “dream
girl” glide gracefully to him, ready to declare her love and devotion;
couldn’t be a luckier guy on earth. Friends and family watch with smiling
faces; a day long anticipated coming to fulfillment in glorious celebration.
What could be more joy-filled than a wedding?!
Certainly not a funeral. Even we, who celebrate the hope of
the gospel and the certainty of heaven, would not classify a funeral and a
wedding together. One is a celebration of new beginnings. The other is a sorrow
over dead endings.
A wedding brings laughter and joy; and even the tears that flow
in a wedding are tears of joy. A funeral displays soberness, and sorrow, and
the tears that flow are ones of anguish and grief.
A wedding is the coming together of friends and family to celebrate
that this man and this woman are being joined together. Everyone rejoices
as two are made “one flesh” through their promises of faithfulness,
and anticipates the fruitfulness of love that awaits the couple. A funeral
is the coming together of friends and family to remember, weep, and grieve
because someone very loved, very special has been torn away. The awareness
of separation disturbs family tranquility, and the barrenness of life without
that cherished friend or family member overwhelms.
They are definitely different things, a wedding and a funeral;
and our expectations of the two events stand at opposite ends of the spectrum.
Jesus reclines with His disciples at a table in an upper room.
On this night, Judas Iscariot will betray Him to the religious and civil authorities.
On this night He will be dragged by rough hands from the Garden of Gethsemane
and forced before the High Priest and Sanhedrin. He will be falsely accused,
and wrongfully tried and convicted. On this night Jesus says, “This
is my body given for you. This cup is the new covenant in my blood, which
is poured out for you.”
In the upper room, the disciples are basically clueless about
what Jesus is telling them, and what the night holds. Still, it is not hard
to imagine that a sense of foreboding must dominate the scene. If you ask
them this question, “Is this Passover meal you are observing with your
Master more like a wedding or a funeral?” We can imagine in that hour
they would respond it is more akin to a funeral. Who would blame them?
What if we were to field the same question, though? We are not
in that hour. We have a different perspective than the disciples, the 20/20
vision of hindsight. So if we answered the same question would we describe
the Lord’s Supper as a wedding or funeral?
Is our knee-jerk reaction is to say, “A funeral, of course?
” Jesus is prefiguring His death: broken body, shed blood. In a few
hours, His flesh will shred under the scourge of the whip. Thorns, nails,
and spear will pierce flesh, bone, and organ, causing blood and water to flow.
Before the whirlwind of hours concludes Jesus will be draped on a cross, indecent,
naked before all who pass, humiliated. Jesus will endure a rain of mocking
and ridicule and spittle. He will struggle, fighting for air, pushing and
pulling on the nails to gasp for breath. He will strain under the awful weight
of the burden of our sins, our hell, until He cries, “It is finished!”
and dies. Of course, it is more like a funeral; death means funeral.
Or does it? This death is unlike any other. This death makes
possible a wedding. This death discovers us trapped in our brokenness and
sets us free. This death uncovers our slavery to sin and death, and ransoms
us, buys us back, and offers us forgiveness. This death recovers us from our
hopeless captivity to all the things we can’t stop doing no matter how
many New Year’s resolutions we make. This death delivers us, sets us
free. Most importantly, this death comes across us in our estrangement and
separation from God—the gulf we cannot bridge, our inability to make
up the distance by effort or deed, our “No Way” sign on the road
to God—and reconciles us. No longer are we enemies, but sons and daughters,
part of the family. This death pays a debt it does not owe, because we owe
a debt we cannot pay; and takes God’s enemies and makes us the Bride
of Christ. You see, in the upper room, it is not a funeral. It’s a wedding.
It is a wedding ceremony that involves a broken body and shed
blood, yes. Yet because of God’s saving activity through the cross and
resurrection, that broken body and shed blood make us ready for a marriage
ceremony, free and forgiven, overwhelmed by love, fit to walk with our Groom.
Jesus makes reference to the wedding current in the Lord’s
Supper when He says He will not drink of this cup again until He drinks it
with us in His Father’s kingdom. The drinking of the cup anticipates
that future experience when the Bride gathers at the table with her Groom
and celebrates the marriage supper of the Lamb for all eternity. We, then,
participate in some way in that reality every time we take the bread and cup
in hand in response to our Lord’s command to “do this in remembrance
of me”. When we take communion we do more than remember dirge-like.
We celebrate a marriage, one created by God for us. This is a wedding ceremony.
Covenant is the word we use to describe that marriage. Covenant
is the biblical way we talk about it. When Jesus says, “This is the
New Covenant in my blood,” He is saying this is a brand new marriage
between God and His people.
Covenant speaks of a relationship of mutual obligation. If you
think about it, covenant is an amazing concept. God, who is above all –
above all powers, above all wisdom, above all of creation (moon and stars,
the expanse of the universe) – would empty himself of divinity and allow
himself to be crucified, in order to place you and me above all. We call that
grace, that God would choose of His own free will, without any sense of compulsion,
to bind himself to you and me, to set us above all. That He would look at
us, knowing our every fault, weakness, and wart; seeing our every failure,
fear, poor use of judgment, and sin; understanding even better than we do,
the depth of our selfishness, the extent of our inability to truly love; being
fully aware of our past and all the baggage we carry; that He would still
come to us and say, “I would sure like to be your husband. Would you
be my bride?” Wow!
God does that for us no matter what we do. Shake our fist at
God. He still gives himself to us. Play the fool, be a prostitute with a bunch
of other lovers; He still comes to us saying, “I would like to be your
husband. Would you like to be my bride?” Can you imagine a husband who
obligates himself to a wife who chooses to be an adulterer? That is grace.
That is the amazing love of God. That is covenant.
Now God does love us like that, but it obviously takes two to
make a marriage. We must love Him in return. Otherwise, no matter what God
does, the relationship is bogus. Thus the other side of covenant is our response
to the amazing love of God. We offer to God our love, loyalty, and service;
otherwise it is not a marriage.
And why shouldn’t we? Why would we want to pass up a dynamic
relationship with God? Good question. Let me give a good answer: because the
evil one deceives us into believing that to do so is a funeral, and not a
wedding. The evil one has portrayed for us, paraded in front of us, all the
things we would have to give up and do without. Our dreams, our ambitions,
our will, our need to be in control; we might have to give up all of that
to enter into the relationship the Lord offers.
Oh, I am not sure I want to have that kind of covenant. Couldn’t
Jesus be on the margins of my life? I can call Him in when I need help; send
Him back out when everything is fine? Wouldn’t that be okay?
The evil one points us to the words of Jesus, “If anyone
would come after me, he must deny himself and take up his cross and follow
me.” Our desires, dreams, control, and self are crucified, dead, and
buried. How awful! How could God ever ask us to do that? Why would it even
be necessary?
Exactly what every bride and groom says and thinks on their
wedding day. How dare she or he ask me to say vows and light that unity candle?
That would be misery! Does he think I am going to give up my plans for the
future and act as if the marriage takes precedence over my individual dreams
and goals? Who does he think he is? She has a surprise coming if she thinks
I’m giving up my will, my wants. Does she really believe I will make
her my focus of concern instead of “yours truly”?
Sure, there are brides and grooms who have those thoughts running
through their heads or lurking in the shadows of their hearts. Where those
attitudes are present, however, the ceremony may be a wedding, but the result
is sure to be the funeral that is divorce.
When marriage is done well, the thought process is completely
different. Instead, the bride and groom believe there is an abundance in this
relationship we call marriage that is worth giving all we have and all we
are. Everything is too small a price to get to spend the rest of life with
that girl, with that guy. The bride and groom give themselves to one another
freely and joyfully. This is the spirit of a wedding.
The prophet Jeremiah understands covenant, its cost and its
joy. He reflects on covenant in three passages we want to look at together.
As he does he calls us to a wedding, not a funeral.
First in 31:31-34, Jeremiah describes the relationship the Lord
invites us to enter:
“The time is coming,” declares the LORD, “when I will make
a new covenant with the house of Israel and with the house of Judah. It will
not be like the covenant I made with their forefathers when I took them by
the hand to lead them out of Egypt, because they broke my covenant, though
I was a husband to them,” declares the LORD. “This is the covenant
I will make with the house of Israel after that time,” declares the
LORD. “I will put my law in their minds and write it on their hearts.
I will be their God, and they will be my people. No longer will a man teach
his neighbor, or a man his brother, saying, ‘Know the LORD,’ because
they will all know me, from the least of them to the greatest,” declares
the LORD. “For I will forgive their wickedness and will remember their
sins no more.”
This is the new covenant. This is what Jesus is referring to
when He says, “This is the new covenant in my blood.” Forgiveness
of sin, the holiness of God’s way within our hearts, intimacy with God;
a brand new relationship, a new marriage. God comes in a new way to be husband
to humanity. What a gift!
Jeremiah then anticipates in 50:4-5 the wedding ceremony that
will crown this relationship; a time when God’s people will draw near
to God to make this new covenant.
“In those days, at that time," declares the LORD,
"the people of Israel and the people of Judah together will go in tears
to seek the LORD their God. They will ask the way to Zion and turn their faces
toward it. They will come and bind themselves to the LORD in an everlasting
covenant that will not be forgotten.”
Then from one more passage, Jeremiah 31:7-14, we have wedding
photos placed before us. We find snapshots of the new covenant displayed so
we might witness the joy and abundance the wedding promises and commences.
This is what the Lord says: “Sing with joy for Jacob;
shout for the foremost of the nations. Make your praise heard, and say, O
Lord, save your people, the remnant of Israel. See, I will bring them from
the land of the north and gather them from the ends of the earth. Among them
will be the blind and the lame, expectant mothers and women in labor; a great
throng will return. They will come with weeping; they will pray as I bring
them back. I will lead them beside streams of water on a level path where
they will not stumble, because I am Israel’s father, and Ephraim is
my firstborn son.”
Hear the word of the Lord, O nations; proclaim it in distant
coastlands: He who scattered Israel will gather them and will watch over his
flock like a shepherd. For the Lord will ransom Jacob and redeem them from
the hand of those stronger than they. They will come and shout for joy on
the heights of Zion; they will rejoice in the bounty of the Lord – the
grain, the new wine and the oil, the young of the flocks and herds. They will
be like a well-watered garden, and they will sorrow no more. Then maidens
will dance and be glad, young men and old as well. I will turn their mourning
into gladness; I will give them comfort and joy instead of sorrow. I will
satisfy the priests with abundance, and my people will be filled with my bounty,
declares the Lord.
Awesome! Here is a brand new marriage. The Lord binds himself to His people.
God births a new covenant onto the world scene. The Lord gathers His people
and delivers them from things stronger than they are and brings them into
the beauty of His rest and bounty.
Did you hear how depressing the passage sounded? Did you catch
the negative tone? How awful that God would act so, binding people in covenant
to himself. Who would want to live in the abundance of God? Who would want
to live life like a well-watered garden? I’m personally into desert,
aren’t you?
Yet we have allowed the evil one to convince us that if we come
to God and say, “My whole life, all that I am, all that I ever hope
to be—my past, my now, my future—it’s given to you, you
are Lord,” then it will be like a funeral. Brother and sister, hear
the good news: we are here today to celebrate a wedding. The vows, the commitment,
the covenant, they are our opportunity to enter into a relationship that will
make life abundant, rich, exciting, whole.
This is our hour to renew a vow or to pledge our hearts and love for the very first time to our divine Lover. Wherever we are spiritually, this is an opportunity to be seized with joy, not a message to be heard with fear and trembling. Yes, it may cost us everything. But look at the Groom. See the love shining in His eyes. Remember all the ways He has loved us. Isn’t He worth everything? Can you imagine a more abounding joy than to pledge our hearts to Him?
