On September 24 more than a few years ago, I did not walk down the aisle of College Church. I stood at the front of the church, my pastor on one side of me and my best friend on the other. I didn’t walk down the aisle, but Lorraine did. She walked alone, in loving memory of her father, who had died 21 years before. She walked toward me, everyone in the church looking at her, and then at me, and as we drew nearer one another, at both of us.

I was so overcome with emotion that I couldn’t sing. The words of the hymn we had so carefully selected would not come out of my mouth. What if I’m like this through the whole service, I wondered. I’m going to have to actually speak the vows. With God’s help and Lorraine’s hands in mine, I found my voice so everyone could hear. We were wed. Some people reading this were with us on that day.

Our wedding happened in church, the sacred and simple place where we planned to spend our lives together, with the people we would be spending our lives with. I know it’s not fashionable, but it wasn’t about fashion. For us at that time, there was no other place for our wedding to happen. This was before destination weddings, or at least we didn’t know about them.

I remember the wedding sermon, at least the part directed at me, as a call to die, to set aside my selfish desires to serve Lorraine. This was pretty sobering. Jesus dying on the cross for our sin and me being a Christlike husband to her. It has always seemed like the harder calling than the instruction to wives, which seems to generate all the anger and debate. Both callings are hard in their own way, which is why marriage is redemptive as we forgive and ask for forgiveness.

Every week we walk down the aisle of the church to sit in a pew and worship God with everyone else who is there. Every week God meets us there, too. He meets us in a special way at gathered-together worship. But what kind of a bride are we?

In Kindergarten Bible school, we just studied the gift of precious perfume poured out in worship on the feet of Jesus. People weren’t sure what to make of it when it happened, except for Judas, who found it especially disgusting. Some churches do foot-washing, but none that I know of pour out expensive and costly oils or perfume in worship. That’s just, well, kind of weird. Not responsible. A waste.

In the different debates about submission and authority, for those who are not married and feel as if they might be missing out, for those who grieve, or for people that think they have it all planned out just right, is love getting lost in laws and practices and debates about who is right?

If we give ourselves over to loving Jesus, what might we do? Dare we even consider the question? Jesus died for my sins, and I have new life in the resurrection. But does Jesus have my heart? Has he captured it or am I holding something back? I lost my voice for a few moments at the front of College Church as Lorraine approached me. But as Christ stands at the front and we draw near to him, how can we break the jar and pour it out onto his feet? Maybe it’s not losing your voice in the moment of love but finding it in the awe of the simple healing touch of his cloak. It’s not losing our voice but daring to speak of his wondrous works. Are we silent for fear that we might confuse people, or they might think we’re drunk or mad?

What kind of a bride are we? Church, not me, all of us together, mysteriously, are the object of his love and delight.

Let love burn like the Pentecostal fires, giving voice where once we dared not speak, love for Jesus in worship, and gratitude for how he did what no one else dared to do, for the wisdom of God that would dream of redemption that none of us humans would have ever devised or chosen even if we had.

We are waiting for that wedding day, when the kingdom that is now and yet not yet has come, and, in our resurrected splendor, we at long last see Jesus, there waiting and welcoming us—the One whom our hearts adore and worship.

Golden ring of eternity
When all the dross is burned away
Radiant we stand before his lovely gaze.
Hand in hand before the throne we go
Nothing left but to love and adore
Engagement ring, a thorn-crafted stone
Await the trumpet call, never again alone.

Let us rejoice and exult and give him the glory, for the marriage of the Lamb has come, and his Bride has made herself ready (Revelation 19:7)