{"id":5694,"date":"2026-08-28T08:48:58","date_gmt":"2026-08-28T12:48:58","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/glennsreflections.com\/?p=5694"},"modified":"2026-08-28T08:48:58","modified_gmt":"2026-08-28T12:48:58","slug":"the-bride-of-christ","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/glennsreflections.com\/index.php\/2026\/08\/28\/the-bride-of-christ\/","title":{"rendered":"The Bride of Christ"},"content":{"rendered":"\n
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To listen to today’s reflection as a podcast,\u00a0click here<\/a>
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Each day this month of August we\u2019ll be looking at one of the extraordinary metaphors that the Bible uses to illustrate the nature of our relationship with God.<\/em>


Not long ago, I realized I had lost track of how many weddings I have officiated.

I know it\u2019s been a bunch.

On the whole, the brides and grooms I have known have had very little in common.

Some have been tall and some have been short.\u00a0Some have been quiet, while others have been exuberant.\u00a0Some would have jumped at the chance to star in a \u201clove at first sight\u201d reality TV show, while others preferred staying under the radar.\u00a0

One couple I married hadn\u2019t yet graduated from high school.\u00a0Another couple actually met<\/u><\/em> at their 50th<\/sup> high school reunion.\u00a0

Most of the weddings have taken place in chapels or church sanctuaries.\u00a0Others have happened in family rooms, porches, or patios. I once performed a ceremony inside the Hoosier state capitol building. Stil others have been outdoors \u2013 occasionally accompanied by raindrops, gusts of wind, scorching heat, or squadrons of mosquitoes flying in formation.

I\u2019ve performed weddings on beaches, atop mountains, in woods, and alongside a lighthouse.

Once I was officiating when a groomsman fainted into an open piano, which certainly struck a memorable chord. At a June wedding inside a small church that had no air conditioning, the thermostat read 114 degrees. The bride fainted. One of the groomsmen, a physician, rushed over to help. He whispered to me, \u201cIt\u2019s too bad this happened, but I\u2019m so glad to have something to do. I was on the verge of fainting, too.\u201d

Another time, the maid of honor somehow lost the ring she was to give to the bride. An hour later we found it had rolled all the way to one of the church\u2019s baseboards. When it came time for the bride to receive that ring and put it on her new husband\u2019s finger, I quickly substituted my own wedding ring. I\u2019ll never forget the look of surprise on her face. \u00a0

I remember one groom pacing nervously right before we walked into the sanctuary. Everything will be fine, I assured him. \u201cI\u2019m not worried about the ceremony,\u201d he replied. Then he pointed to a pickup truck in the church parking lot. \u201cYou see those two kegs of beer? They\u2019re for the reception. I sure hope no one steals them!\u201d

While most grooms have been the picture of health, looking forward to the rest of their lives, one of them spoke his vows while lying in a hospital bed, knowing he had less than two months to live. \u201cI just want to leave this world knowing we got married.\u201d

On another occasion in which the groom was hospitalized, the vows were exchanged in a family waiting area. Since he cherished his Scottish roots, the groom had hired a bagpiper. Hospital authorities, fearing that bagpipe music at full volume might precipitate a few medical setbacks, insisted that he play outdoors. And he did \u2013 on a hospital roofline some seven stories above the ground. I\u2019ve always wondered how passersby responded to that concert.

Some couples have been wealthy and immediately took off to honeymoons on other continents. Others were barely able to scrape together enough to pay for their wedding license, then to grab some burgers at the drive-through after the ceremony.

I\u2019ve seen a lot of different brides and grooms.

But I\u2019ve never once<\/em> seen a bride or a groom come to their own wedding and casually say \u201cI do\u201d without having given some serious thought as to how proclaiming those two little words was going to change their life forever.

In every generation, in every culture and every locale, weddings are a very big deal.

That\u2019s why the metaphor of marriage comes at the very end of our month-long consideration of what it means to be in relationship with God. It is impossible to imagine a closer connection to the Lord than having him say to us, before the watching world, \u201cI will be with you always \u2013 for better, for worse, for richer, for poorer, in sickness and in health.\u201d That\u2019s a very big deal, indeed.

The notion of God as spouse had been deeply planted in the prophetic tradition of Israel. Isaiah 54:5 says, \u201cFor your Maker is your husband, the Lord of hosts is his name.\u201d \u00a0

In the New Testament, the one standing at the altar is Jesus. The apostle Paul tells the Corinthians that he \u201cbetrothed you to one husband, to Christ, so that I might present you as a pure virgin to him\u201d (2 Corinthians 11:2).

Here we should pause and note that the Bible never says that individuals<\/em> are betrothed to God\u2019s Son. The Bride of Christ is the whole church \u2013 every follower of Jesus from every generation \u2013 past, present, and future.

Likewise, the wedding is still ahead of us. According to Revelation 19:7-9, the \u201cmarriage of the Lamb\u201d (that would be Jesus, the Lamb of God) will happen at the end of history and will represent the culmination of God\u2019s efforts to redeem this broken world.

Even as we appreciate the vivid nature of metaphors, we must also accept their limitations. \u201cBeing married to Jesus\u201d should not be understood as the sharing of romantic feelings, moving into an FCA (first crummy apartment), or working through disagreements on how to load the dishwasher.

Instead, the biblical metaphor of marriage is the highest possible expression of unity, fidelity, and love.

Brides and grooms in this world typically share extraordinary, unconditional promises. But we just as typically falter in trying to live them out. None of us has a clean slate when we enter marriage, and those slates become even more compromised along our marital journeys. We discover, to our shame, that we do not have infinite reservoirs of forgiveness and love.

But Jesus does.

From that standpoint, the church\u2019s marriage to the Savior is a one-sided affair. He provides all the grace and all the staying power.

So, what do we bring to this relationship? We simply present ourselves. We stand before him as the ones whom he loves. Between now and the marriage of the Lamb, our call is to live in such a way that honors Christ. Paul writes that Jesus \u201cloved the church and gave himself up for her,\u201d that he might present her \u201ca glorious church, not having spot or wrinkle or any such thing but that it should be holy and without blemish\u201d (Ephesians 5:25-27).

That was the ideal in Bible times \u2013 that every bride should be without blemish, both inside and out.

No human bride has ever met such a standard, and the church falls grievously short of perfection.

But we are betrothed to a Husband whose covenantal love and divine power will transform us, at the end of history, into something unimaginably beautiful.

So, let\u2019s prepare ourselves, with all our hearts, for our Wedding Day. It\u2019s going to be a very big deal.

And who knows? There may even be bagpipes.
<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

To listen to today’s reflection as a podcast,\u00a0click here Each day this month of August we\u2019ll be looking at one of the extraordinary metaphors that the Bible uses to illustrate the nature of our relationship with God. Not long ago, I realized I had lost track of how many weddings I have officiated. I know it\u2019s been a bunch. On… Read more »<\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":5695,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[1],"tags":[226,1159],"class_list":["post-5694","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-uncategorized","tag-marriage","tag-metaphors"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/glennsreflections.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/5694","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/glennsreflections.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/glennsreflections.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/glennsreflections.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/glennsreflections.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=5694"}],"version-history":[{"count":1,"href":"https:\/\/glennsreflections.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/5694\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":5696,"href":"https:\/\/glennsreflections.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/5694\/revisions\/5696"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/glennsreflections.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/5695"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/glennsreflections.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=5694"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/glennsreflections.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=5694"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/glennsreflections.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=5694"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}