The Groom

I have picked up an odd habit, or maybe not so odd, I do not know. At weddings, the music plays its interlude, and the doors are opened, and the bride comes into view and begins to walk down the aisle. . .

I like the verse in Song of Songs, “Who is she that looketh forth as the morning, fair as the moon, clear as the sun, and terrible as an army with banners?” — Everyone stands up to behold this bride walking toward the groom in her wedding dress full of beauty, her eyes excited, and her heart ready to become the wife of the man standing waiting for her. When this happens, I stand up with everyone, but my gaze is not toward the bride coming in beauty, but instead it is toward the groom. I love to see his face as he watches her coming toward him. His eyes full of passion and love. He is totally ravished by this women coming toward him. His delight is her. (Song of Songs 4:9) I look to the groom because I want to get a glimpse of what I know I will one day see in Christ as He comes for His bride. He too will have exhilaration and love in His eyes and will be fully ravished by His bride and be taken back by her beauty. God being taken back in awe of the beauty of His bride!

Have ever watched a father look at his child in his arms or at play? I think it is one of the wonders of the world. Can it compare to a sunset, a dew drop on a bloom, or a waterfall? What song could recount the melody? And yet I like what Jesus said when he called the fathers that have shown us love, wicked. In all its beauty it falls short of the love that the Father has for His children. His gaze of love is beyond description and fills our heart more than all the beauty of the world. And as a father’s heart is taken by his child, so His heart is taken by us. God delights in us! How can this be?

“I have loved you with everlasting love; I have drawn you with loving kindness.”

“For this reason I bow my knees to the Father of our Lord Jesus Christ, from whom the whole family in heaven and earth is named, that He would grant you, according to the riches of His glory, to be strengthened with might through His Spirit in the inner man, that Christ may dwell in your hearts through faith: that you, being rooted and grounded in love, may be able to comprehend with all the saints what is the width and length and depth and height – to know the love of Christ which passes knowledge; that you may be filled with all the fullness of God.

Now to Him who is able to do exceedingly abundantly above all that we ask or think, according to the power that works in us, to Him be the glory in the church by Christ Jesus to all generations, forever and ever.”

— Ephesians 3:14-21