Wedding Portrait

My granddaughter received a long-awaited package in the mail this week. Her wedding album! Never had photographs been so eagerly anticipated. But her volunteer photographer and favorite uncle had had a busy summer.

Two weeks on a mission trip to Japan; a prior commitment to help me with the publishing of my book; work assignments juggled with child care; an epic two-week family vacation to the west coast; sermons to prepare and youth band practices to direct; a traumatic burglary to his home; a trip to Oklahoma for his mother’s birthday; a youth camp to plan and direct; entertaining parents on our vacation; the list goes on and on. Besides which, he is, or was growing up, a master of procrastination! Well, he did have a lot on his plate!

But I’m sure the pictures were worth the wait. And it was less than six months, not long for a gift that will last a lifetime. A treasured memory of a beautiful bride, her groom, and all their favorite people around them captured forever in the glow of happiness that a wedding brings.

Wedding dates, so eagerly anticipated, can seem to take forever to arrive, then suddenly, the date has come amid all the flurry of preparations and just as suddenly passed. In the Bible, a story is given of an ancient wedding, described in the customs of the day. The bridesmaids were all in readiness, but the bridegroom delayed his coming, then arriving at midnight, found some of them unaware and sleeping. Their lamps had gone out, and going for more oil, they missed the wedding due to their careless inattentiveness.

It’s not fun to miss a wedding. We arrived at a nephew’s wedding once just in time to meet the bride and groom exiting the church. Running late, we’d had to get a gift card and then stop to put gas in the car. Our “oil” had run out, as had the lamps in the Bible story.

In the biblical fashion of marriage, we are awaiting our Heavenly bridegroom. We do not know when he will arrive, but it is our job, as the Bride of Christ, to make ourselves ready. A bridegroom of Jesus’ day left his betrothed to build and prepare a home for the bride under his Father’s guidance. No matter how eager he was to hurry the job and take shortcuts in his haste, he could not retrieve his bride until his father deemed the house to be ready.

Jesus told us that He has gone to prepare a place for us. We may not know the date, but all signs point to His imminent return. May our wedding gown be without spot or wrinkle, and may we with the scripture in Revelation 22:17, agree that “The Spirit and the bride say, come.” And in Revelation 22:20, when Jesus says, “Surely I come quickly,” we respond, “Even so, come, Lord Jesus.”