June. The month of brides and grooms. Maybe it’s the good weather, maybe it’s just having graduated from school, but for whatever reason, it’s traditionally the month more people choose to get married than any other. For some it means putting off the ceremony until that date arrives. For others, it means hurrying through preparations to get ready for the big event. And that brings three thoughts about weddings to mind.

First, throughout the Bible, God uses the analogy of marriage for the relationship between God and His people. God created marriage so we would understand the relationship He intended for Christ and His Church. And it’s a relationship we should want, and want in such a way that we would not want to put it off to a later date. Weddings seal relationships that began in dating or courting. Weddings make official and binding what before we were “investigating” as a possibility. Salvation, our committing ourselves to putting our trust in Christ, makes official our “investigation,” as it were, of the truth claims of the Gospel. In trusting Christ, in coming to salvation, we enter into that eternal relationship with God in Christ, that relationship we should want now, not later. In fact, the Bible says, “Now is the day of salvation,” (2 Cor. 6.2.) There is absolutely no reason to put off a relationship with Jesus Christ until some other time in life. Don’t neglect it; put your faith in Christ NOW!

Secondly, weddings incur preparations. And for those who really understand what weddings start—marriages—those preparations include whatever it may take to be ready to live together, happily, for the next fifty years or so. At New hope we require premarital counseling to prepare couples to be ready for marriage. Our relationship with Christ is going to incur some preparations, as well, to love Him as we ought. Rev. 19.7 says that at the Wedding Feast of the Lamb in Heaven, the “Bride,” (the Church), “has made herself ready” for her Groom, for Christ. Our preparations for that day mean getting to know Him a whole lot better than we do, spending time with Him daily, learning how to please Him, striving to serve Him. And remember, our preparations are not just for fifty years or so, they’re preparations for eternity!

Finally, weddings are almost always tremendously happy and romantic occasions that don’t always result in tremendously and constantly happy and romantic relationships. The day of our salvation may be one of almost delirious joy, but the road we walk with Christ is tough, strait, and narrow. Jesus said, “In this world you will have trouble,” (John 16.33.) Not an exciting thing for the groom to say to His bride, but it’s realistic. And, to encourage us, He adds, “Take heart! I have overcome the world.”

So, the bottom line is this: let June weddings challenge you to become a part of the Bride of Christ—His Church—and to remind you to prepare for the eternal marriage, tough now, but joyous forever. You think about that.

– Pastor Jim