Married to Christ
Isaiah 62:5 5For just as a young man marries a virgin, your sons will marry you, and just as a bridegroom rejoices over a bride, your God will rejoice over you.
I pray that, according to the riches of his glory, he would strengthen you with power through his Spirit in your inner self, so that Christ may dwell in your hearts through faith (Ephesians 3:16-17). Amen.
Perhaps you’ve seen an expression of unity by the bride and groom at a wedding. Perhaps it was at your wedding or another wedding. Maybe it was a unity candle, where two separate candles are used to light a single candle. Or unity sand, where the groom and bride alternate pouring different colored sand into a glass container. Or a unity cross, where two large puzzle pieces are brought together to form a cross.
Yesterday, at the wedding of Caleb and Emma, was the first time I had been part of a hand-binding ceremony. After making their marriage vows, I placed a cord over their arms. They then wrapped the cords around their hands, symbolizing their unity to each other and Christ. I preached on Ecclesiastes 4:12 where Solomon writes that a cord of three strands is not easily broken. That cord of husband, wife, and God.
Since we’re talking about weddings today, did you know that Jesus was married? You are quite familiar with Jesus’ bride.
She’s not the kind of woman you would expect the holy Son of God to pursue. She argues, fights, can’t hold her tongue, but certainly holds grudges. She is mean, hurtful, and spiteful. She is passive aggressive. Other times she’s just plain aggressive. She is anxious and worried. She is fearful and untrusting. She has a bad temper and a potty mouth.
She has a very good Dad, though, who has taken excellent care of her. He provides her with everything she needs and most of what she wants. Yet, she’s not content, so she sneakily steals from others. She’s constantly confused about her identity. She allows her desires to control her. She does whatever feels good. She’s from a pagan culture. She’s certainly not a church-going lady.
She’s been married before. Her ex treated her horribly. She tends to sleep around a lot. She’s the last one who should be wearing a white gown for her wedding.
I think you know Jesus’ wife quite well. She eats at your table and sleeps in your bed.
For those of you who are married, how did you meet your future spouse? Men, did she catch your eye? Ladies, did your friends introduce you? Did you use a dating app and swiped right? After you met and you learned that this person is like everything I described about Jesus’ bride, would you still have married him or her?
Jesus knew everything about his future bride … yet he still pursued her. In fact, he didn’t stop pursuing her until he rescued her from her empty way of life. He didn’t stop until he redeemed her from her broken life. Every marriage counselor in the world would have advised him to let her go and find someone else – someone more attractive, more stable, more honest – more marriage material.
Yet Jesus didn’t stop. He paid off her debts, her guilt, and her shame. He knew he could save her. And even change her. Jesus is so in love with her that he gave up his life for her. He let his accusers bind him, mock him, spit on him, slap him, beat him, nail him, and kill him. All without
saying a word. As a wedding gift to his bride, Jesus died a death and endured a wrath that was meant for her.
You know Jesus’ bride very well, don’t you? It’s you!
This week I asked the third graders, “Who was Jesus’ wife?” They replied that he wasn’t married. I said he was. So they started naming names. I corrected them and said, “Jesus is married to you.” They replied, “What?!” “Even the boys?!” “That’s weird!”
I’ve been blessed to perform the weddings for many couples. Every groom is the same. At the wedding, he’s standing in the front. He’s anxious. His forehead is sweating. His hands are clammy. He shuffles his feet. He can’t wait to see his bride walking down the aisle. A big smile fills his face when he sees her. Tears roll down his cheeks. There is his beautiful bride!
That’s exactly the way Jesus feels about you! “For just as a young man marries a virgin, your sons will marry you, and just as a bridegroom rejoices over a bride, your God will rejoice over you” (Isaiah 62:5).
That joy and delight is what God has for those who believe in him. You make God smile. Allow your jaw to drop in awe at that beautiful truth.
We know what makes God happy – total perfection. God says, “Be holy because I, the Lord your God, am holy” (Leviticus 19:2). We also know that God hates sin and will absolutely never allow any sinner to enter into his kingdom. God says, “Nothing impure will ever enter it, nor will anyone who does what is shameful or deceitful” (Revelation 21:27). Yet he takes delight in you. Seeing you makes his face light up like a groom seeing his bride on his wedding day.
Before we breathed our infant breath, we were helplessly conceived in sin. That sin makes us selfish, rude, irritable, impatient, and independent. Before we took our infant breath, we were sinners. So, the perfect, sinless Son of God left heaven to be born as an infant taking his first breaths as God and man in one person. Thirty-three years later the Son of God stopped breathing on the cross. He took our sins upon his perfect, sinless body. He gave us his holiness. He laid down his life for us. He gave himself up for us. He loved us with a divine love so that we can now love each other.
The Bible calls Jesus our Bridegroom and you and I as Christians are his bride. He sacrificed everything to win us back from the devil so bride and Bridegroom can be together forever in the heavenly home he prepared for us.
No matter what is going on in your life, or what others think when they look at you, God looks at you with loving eyes. What he sees gives him great joy and will continue to give him great joy for all of eternity.
Did Jesus ever marry? Yes, he married you! He didn’t marry a single woman because he came to make each of us his bride. Though our faith falters, Jesus makes a vow to you, and he is faithful. Though we break our vows, he remains vigilant. In Baptism, Jesus washes you clean of your sin and clothes you with white righteousness. Though we shed tears of regret and shame, Jesus assures us of comfort and forgiveness when he feeds us his wedding feast, “Take and eat, this is my body; take and drink, this is my blood for the forgiveness of sins.” No one has ever seen such a husband as Jesus.
The third graders didn’t get it. It’s a little too figurative for them. I pray you understand this beautiful wedding picture God’s Word paints for us today. Did Jesus ever marry? Yes, he married you!
Jesus’ sacrificial, merciful, gracious love now allows you to express a sacrificial, merciful, gracious love to each other. Jesus forgives you. This allows you to forgive each other. In his compassion he put you first, even before his own life. That compassion allows you to be compassionate to each other, putting the needs of others ahead of your own.
“Then you will be a beautiful crown in the Lord's hand, and a royal diadem in the palm of your God. You will never again be called Abandoned, and your land will never again be called Desolation, for you will be called My Delight Is in Her, and your land will be called Married, because the Lord delights in you, and your land will be married” (Isaiah 62:3-4).
Though these words were first directed to ancient Israel, they also apply to us today. We are not forsaken. We have not been left abandoned in the ruins of our sin. Instead, God has made a way for us to rise from the rubble, to become what he has always wanted us to be – his beloved and beautiful bride. Just like you have a nickname for your spouse, Jesus has a nickname for you – “My Delight Is in Her.”
Jesus will have and hold you for better, for worse, for richer, for poorer, in sickness, and in health. He will love and cherish you. He won’t even let death part you from him. He is the eternal Bridegroom who died and lives forever. When Death threatens to rob him of his beloved bride, he rescues her from Death so she might live with him forever.
St. John writes, “I saw the Holy City, the new Jerusalem, coming down out of heaven from God, prepared as a bride beautifully dressed for her husband” (Revelation 21:2). We may not always feel like that beautiful bride coming down the aisle in a gown of white, yet in Jesus’ holy eyes, this is exactly who we are. We are what he calls us – holy. He dresses us in his righteous robes. While we may not see it now, John tells us that one day, we will see ourselves as Christ sees us – the bride fully accepted and made perfect by her Bridegroom.
You are the object of Christ’s sacrificial love. You are the most valuable thing on this planet. You have a calling and a purpose here for a reason. To be loved, what do you need? You need someone to love you. To have value, what do you need? Someone to value you. To have a calling and a purpose, what do you need? You need someone to call you and give you that purpose. Jesus is that Bridegroom who loves you, values you, and calls you.
So, go to Christ. He has bound himself to you. On the cross, Jesus reached out his nail-pierced hand to you. This was love. Jesus loves you more than you will ever know. He loves you with all his heart. The problem is not that you don’t love Jesus enough. The truth is that you don’t know how much Jesus loves you. Because if you would know this, you would want nothing more than to cherish being bound to Christ and live beautifully and solely for your Bridegroom. Amen.
Now to him, who is able, according to the power that is at work within us, to do infinitely more than we can ask or imagine, to him be the glory in the church and in Christ Jesus throughout all generations, forever and ever! (Ephesians 3:20-21) Amen.