Beautiful Bride

"Then I heard the sound of massed choirs, the sound of a mighty cataract, the sound of strong thunder:
Hallelujah!
The Master reigns,
our God, the Sovereign-Strong!
Let us celebrate, let us rejoice,
let us give him the glory!
The Marriage of the Lamb has come;
his Wife has made herself ready.
She was given a bridal gown
of bright and shining linen.
The linen is the righteousness of the saints.
The Angel said to me, "Write this: 'Blessed are those invited to the Wedding Supper of the Lamb.'" He added, "These are the true words of God!"
I fell at his feet to worship him, but he wouldn't let me. "Don't do that," he said. "I'm a servant just like you, and like your brothers and sisters who hold to the witness of Jesus. The witness of Jesus is the spirit of prophecy." - Revelation 19:6-10 (NLT)

This scripture describes the church as the bride of Christ. To help figure out what that means,I just want to put some images in your head of what a bride looks like. Think about the weddings you’ve been to. All the guests describe the bride... she’s lovely, she’s beautiful. When everyone at the wedding is gathered in the church and the bridal march turns uptempo, the whole congregation stands and turns around just to watch her enter the room in all her splendor. And, she’s so stunning that the mothers cry and her sisters cry and her friends cry, and the groom gets weak in the knees, because it is at this time he first realizes, he’s marrying way out of his league. She is the most gorgeous woman in the room, and, at that moment, she’s the most beautiful woman alive. But, she doesn’t get there alone. Preparations for the wedding start months- often years before. Little girls buy hope chests and fill them with pieces of china and and pictures clipped from magazines, boys give promise rings, and young ladies visit other weddings and cut clippings of great hairstyles from celebrity magazines- until by the time she reaches adulthood, the wedding is foremost on a young woman’s mind. Often, in fact, the only missing piece in a young lady’s life is a groom. Minor detail.

So, when that day comes, parents, friends, relatives all work to make her look as gorgeous as she possibly can. Her best friends give up their entire week or month even, and wear the most hideous hot pink and teal dresses with big poofy skirts and unflattering sleeves just to make her look even more beautiful. And on that day, everyone is taking pictures of the bride and the wedding scrapbook even years later will have three pictures of the groom (including one with the groomsmen lifting him on their shoulders while he looks very afraid), seven pictures of the flower girl, and 126 pictures of the bride. And whenever they look back at the scrapbook, all anyone ever talks about is how beautiful the bride is.

In our case, the church is the bride. Our job as believers in the church is to make her beautiful. Beautiful so that all who encounter her will remember her beauty. Beautiful so she is ready to do the work she has to do. Beautiful so that more people want to come to the wedding party. And most of all, beautiful for her groom. Let's gather round and serve her, let's organize and make her as beautiful as Jesus intended.