“[Christ gave himself up] to present here to himself as a radiant church….”

One of the things that make my job as a pastor in our church interesting is the opportunity to officiate weddings and funerals.  I’ve done some doozies of both.  After a church member died of cancer, her unsaved family members lit and tossed firecrackers at the gravesite because she had told family members, “I want to go out with a bang.”  Obviously her not-too-smart family members hadn’t evolved much beyond concrete thinking.  On another occasion I found myself on the back end of a deep sea fishing boat in 5-6 foot seas in the Gulfstream doing a memorial service with people I didn’t know for a relative I’d never met.  I did everything possible trying not to lose my breakfast, eaten hours earlier, before committing the deceased’s ashes to the water.  God answered prayer: my breakfast didn’t join the ashes!

Like you, I’ve been to a bunch of weddings, some being cross-cultural ones.  I’ve even officiated a few of them.  Probably the most interesting cross-cultural wedding we attended was that of a man from Pakistan and an American bride.  Both were believers heading into ministry.  And with everything the Bible says about marriage being a wonderful and good thing — even it being a picture of our salvation in Christ (Ephesians 5) — this Pakistani brother couldn’t get past his cultural upbringing.  I kept looking at their faces: first the bride, then the groom.  She was radiant, glowing with gladness.  Him?  Well, he looked deathly ill, pale, appearing as if he were immediately facing a firing squad as soon as the formalities concluded.  I thought, “What’s the matter with him?  He looks like he’s dying up there!  She’s a beautiful woman, a Christian woman at that, and they had an exciting future awaiting them.  Can’t he even get close to a smile?”  I found out later that many cultures from the Middle East and other parts of Asia accept the notion that marriage for a man is a necessity at best and bondage at worst.  It’s something that’s endured.  Fortunately, after the ceremony the groom lightened up, saying he was nervous up on the stage. Hmmm…

Having mentioned Ephesians 5, we see a description of Christ found nowhere else in Scripture that he is a presenter.  He presents his Bride — that’s us — to himself.  In a sense, he officiates his own wedding.  The whole verse (27) says, [Christ gave himself up] to present her to himself as a radiant church, without stain or wrinkle or any other blemish, but holy and blameless.”  The word “present” as a verb means, “to set or stand beside or alongside.”  This is a formal presentation, the wedding of the Lamb, to be followed by a great banquet that Revelation 19 mentions (vs. 6-9).  Back in Ephesians 5, Paul says it’s the mystery of our salvation in Christ that gives birth to the human institution of marriage.  The whole male and female thing, the head and the helper, plays off of this spiritual reality.  It is a picture of spiritual truth that every culture follows, whether or not they have Christian or biblical familiarity.

So Christ first must get his bride ready.  He had to remove the penalty of sin, which necessitated his coming to earth to pay for sins on the cross.  It was this grand event — the presentation of his bride — that he had in mind that Hebrews 12:2 alludes to: “who for the joy that set before him endured the cross, scorning its shame and sat down at the right hand of the throne of God.”  And there he waited and waits with tremendous anticipation, because he knows what’s coming: arriving at the throne of God, the very center of the universe.  Angels present, saints of other eras attending.  Sin?  Gone.  Pain?  Gone.  Evil?  Ditto.  Can we fully explain what that will be like?  No.  We can only guess because even with the Scriptures, “we see but a poor reflection as in a mirror; then [in heaven] we shall see face to face.  Now I know in part; then [in heaven] I shall know fully, even as I am fully known” (1 Corinthians 13:12).

Once the presentation, the ceremony, concludes, it only gets better.  In Ephesians 2:6-7 we get another glimpse.  Notice we’re not standing now, but sitting: “And God raised us up with Christ and seated us with him in the heavenly realms in Christ Jesus, in order that in the coming ages he might show the incomparable riches of his grace, expressed in his kindness to us in Christ Jesus.”  Interesting that eternity is described as “the coming ages.”  Could it be that these ages are marked by the various “riches of his grace,” as the unlimited omnipotent, omniscient God lavishes his grace on us?  Do you see how indescribable our future is?  Are there words that can even approximate such grace?  Or ages?  Or God?

What’s in your heart as you present yourself to the world each day?  Is it your Presenter?