Being a bride…

by Margaret Killingray (Word for the Week 14-07-08) 

Arise, shine… as a bridegroom rejoices over his bride, so will your God rejoice in you.  Isaiah 60:1, 62:5

LICC’s emphasis on whole-life discipleship reminds us of one aspect of our relationship with the Lord – we are disciples, who learn by listening and by ‘disciplined’ application.  But, of course, the Bible overflows with a variety of metaphors to explain our relationship to God – shepherd and sheep, king and subjects, saviour and rescued.  There are two that draw particularly on the universal experience of everyday intimate relationships – Father and child, husband and wife.

In this verse the marriage imagery fits with the ‘now and not yet’ theme of Isaiah’s last seven chapters.  This relationship can start for us now, as we turn in love and commitment to the Lord.  And John takes up this imagery in the final chapters of the Bible when we, as the bride of Christ, sit down at the final wedding feast, when the heavens open for us and all the promises of our betrothal are fulfilled.  You will be called by a new name (Isaiah 62:2) – Hephzibah (My delight is in her), Beulah (married).  

There is, though, a dark side to this metaphor.  Jeremiah (2:31-3:1) and Ezekiel (ch.16), as well as Hosea (2:8-20), use the words adultery and prostitution to describe the rebellion of the people of God, their rejection of his love as they seek other gods.  Ezekiel’s picture is particularly raw and shocking, some commentators reacting negatively to the development of the metaphor, women reacting to the emphasis on the wife as adulterer and prostitute, and men feeling a little silly as a bride!
 
Isaiah speaks of God’s relationship to his people as the deep, passionate, committed love of a husband.  Sometimes it is easy to lose sight of the intense love in this picture of our relationship to the Lord.  We major on orthodoxy, on doctrine, on assessing the theology of others.  It is as if we were getting out our marriage certificate each morning before going to work, to prove the relationship is orthodox, instead of just kissing each other.

This morning and for ever, the Lord is our lover and we can look forward with total certainty to all the rich fulfilment of that promise when the day of the Lord comes.