The bride of Christ

My brain's on overdrive this morning. It's because I'm finding out more and more every day how much I don't know about Jesus. It's not that my ignorance has been making more appearances than usual...but that I have been learning some things about Jesus that are blowing my mind and making me wonder why I didn't know these things before?

It just seems so strange that I sit here...in Poznan, Poland...reading these edgy authors and am finding myself exploring God so much more than when going through those "interesting" (cross reference the Shattuck'ovian usage of this term) several years of seminary. How is it that I've never been so tuned into the fact that Jesus was Jewish and that so much of what he did and said was dripping with Jewish cultural references...making it all that much more meaningful and beautiful?? Why weren't these things taught in New Testament class or Biblical Backgrounds (where we spent every class, as I joke, talking about the favorite under-tunic color of the kings of Assyria).

I was afraid to start writing this blog today because if I really let loose and let the words flow, no one would stick around long enough to read it! There's just too much inside me trying to bust out of the tiny walls of my mind. I am just...well, joyful. Sounds goofy huh? But seriously....and here's why (the nutshell version of what I'll be speaking about on June 4th).

I am the bride of Christ. When he raised the cup at the final passover with the disciples he was saying that they need to remember him...that they need to continue thinking about him all the while doing everything necessary to be prepared for him returning.

When he said he was going to prepare a place for them, this was a normal phrase of a groom who had just arranged his marriage with his fiancee. He would return to his father's house to prepare the place they would live in after their official marriage ceremony.

The awesome thing is that upon "cutting" the marriage covenant (here for more on covenants), (1) the marriage was official although not completed and (2) the covenant would be left with the bride while she was waiting for her husband to return to claim her. The couple would drink a glass of wine together, knowing that the next glass of wine they shared would be after the marriage was completed and the groom had returned.

There's really too much to go into in a blog post (maybe). Reading about all of this, though, has blown my mind...giving me a completely new understanding of God's love for me.

• He sent His Son to die on the cross to pay my wedding price.
• Jesus promised me upon cutting our marriage covenant with his blood that he would go to prepare a place for me and that one day, unexpectedly, he will return to me.
• Jesus left me with two forms of evidence, the Holy Spirit and God's marriage covenant with His people, His Word.
• I have also been given the assurance that I am already his! I have been purified through my commitment to him. And I now wait in eager expectation of the day when he will return for me.

Isn't this an incredibly beautiful picture, no reality, of God's love for His people. Why don't we, the church -- the whole bride of Christ -- share this love with the world. Why don't we freak out with joy when we think about Him, causing us to unashamedly share that love with others? Why don't I do that??