The Bride of Christ (GREAT blog post)!!

So I have been a little excited over the Tenth Avenue North concert this coming Monday! I checked over on their website today (just passing time) and I ran across the band's blog. Wow! Some of the entries really blew me away. I am lovin this blog entry....so I thought I would pass it along to everyone. It was written by Mike Donehey (lead singer). Hope you all enjoy :)
**You can find the original link to the Tenth Avenue North blog HERE **



The disciples must have thought Jesus was crazy.
Seriously. I can only imagine their faces.
So confused, so perplexed, uncomfortably glancing back and forth between each other,
wondering if they had misheard, wondering if someone could help them understand.
Meanwhile, you got Jesus, unnerved, unfazed, just sitting there cooly,
looking them dead in the eyes, asking them to marry Him.
Yes, you heard me right…marry Him.
With nothing more than a cup of wine, no less,
the Lamb of God was proposing. So you can imagine their confusion right?
“Wait. What? Come again? Jesus, you feeling alright brotha?
I mean, I don’t think that I’m exactly what you’re looking for!
You want to think about what you’re saying for a minute?”

Of course, we don’t see it that way, because we’re not Jewish.
But they were, and they did. See it that way, I mean.
“Drink from it, all of you. This is my blood of the covenant,
which is poured out for many for the forgiveness of sins.”
We hear these words and we think Communion, Eucharist, Last Supper.
The disciples heard this and they’re thinking wedding bells.

Apparently,

“In those days,” when a Hebrew man decided to take for Himself a Hebrew woman,
he’d go to his father and say, “Her, Dad. I want to make little rabbis with her.”
So then the dad would go to her dad and they’d talk camels, or sheep,
or whatever the payment was going to be, and after they’d settled on a figure,
the groom would call in all his friends and family, set a table in the middle of a room,
set the aforementioned girl down in front of said table,
break out a cup, fill it with wine, and set it in front of her saying,
“This is my covenant with you, take and drink it.”
And if she did, that was her answer. With a simple gulp and swig,
she was saying, “I do,” and that was it. No rings, no fancy songs or dinners,
just a cup and an invitation.
And oh yeah, all their relatives sitting in the room watching.
I mean, talk about pressure. But yeah, that was it.
Her lips to the glass was the same as saying,
“I accept your life, and I give you mine in return.”

Now, If the girl said yes, “in those days,” she would then go immediately back to her home,
where she would be known as, “one who was bought with a price.”
It’s true. That was her name. Kind of long and tedious, and extremely hard to shout out in
a game of soccer, but that was it. And with her new identity, she would go back to her town,
and start preparing for the wedding. And really, she’d just start waiting
for future husband to finish what he had to do and come and get her.
What was he doing? Well, during the engagement, the groom’s primary responsibility was
to build a mansion for him and his bride to be.

Now girls, before you get too excited, let me explain. “Mansion” in Hebrew means, “apartment.”
And what’s even better is that this apartment was actually more like an addition,
because the groom would build it onto his parents pre-existing house.
Yes. You heard me correctly. Their first home would be with the in-laws.
And right now, I can just imagine how many girls are thinking,
“oh please don’t let me marry a Jewish boy.”
It’s true though. He would build his “mansion” onto the family “insula,”
which is what they would call the family dwelling.
You see, the entire family would just keep building on and building on
until you had what was basically a city block, all comprised of one big bustling Jewish family.
(And you thought My Big Fat Greek Wedding was bad) Crazy, but also true.

Well, as you can imagine, this process could take quite a while.
I mean, it’s a house for crying out loud.
Some scholars say it was six months, or even a year before the poor guy was finished.
And get this, the only one who could decide if it was finished was the father.
So he’d be working and working and working, and every day looking to his dad,
saying, “Are we done yet?” And I can just imagine the father messing with him.
Taking his time, looking it over, and then just saying, “Almost.”
Could you imagine? Oh, the agony!
And to top it all off, the groom and the bride weren’t even allowed to talk to each other.
Nothing. Nada. Zip.
They couldn’t see or speak to one another during the entire engagement, except for one outlet.
The best man. He’d be the instant messenger if you will. Taking notes back and forth between
the doting couple. And those moments were probably pretty funny.
“Here’s your note, ‘one who was bought with a price.’ Check yes, no, or maybe.”
Unbelievable.

But you know, how much more beautiful would that day be when the father finally approved?
That day when the groom was finally finished, and he could gather up his homeboys,
or ‘groomsmen’ as we westerners would say, and imperiously march into his fiance’s town?
Oh it was sweet.
And that’s just what he’d do. He’d get his bridal party together and they’d come to her house,
and without any prior announcement or advanced warning, they would blow a shofar,
which was a ram’s horn that served as a trumpet,
and upon hearing it, the pining bride would come bustling out her front door and practically
straight down the aisle, and into her beloved’s arms.
The period of waiting and wanting would be over,
and the two would be united at last to consummate their long-awaited union.
Joy. Happiness. Little Rabbis… You know, all the good stuff.

So then,
Back to the dinner table with the 12. Can you sense where this is going?
Jesus breaks into this marriage proposal,
cup out, wine-filled, offering his covenant with them. They accept.
“I do” to Jesus. Gulp, gulp. “I accept your life, and I give you mine in return.”
So then, what does Jesus do? He explains how they have to spend some time apart.
Naturally. Only this is going to be longer than a year. However, the best man was coming.
His name? The Holy Spirit. So when Jesus leaves,
off to get busy preparing a “mansion” for them, (“in my Father’s house there are many rooms”)
He doesn’t leave them alone, but instead sends His own mediator, the Holy Spirit,
to keep the messages going between Himself and his Beloved.
Meanwhile, the bride is left behind in her town, keeping watch, day and night,
not knowing the day, time or hour that the bridegroom will appear.
Until finally, after a long-awaited return, and we’re talking seriously,
long awaited; centuries and milleniums waited people,
after this much awaited consummation,
the Father alone will announce that the time has come,
and Jesus will be coming back for all His faithful, all who are His bride.
With a posse of angels and loud trumpet call of their own, He will take us home,
to the marriage supper of the Lamb!
And we will share in ever-increasing joy and intimacy with Him forever and ever.
As C.S. Lewis so brilliantly articulated, “Further up and further in!”

And people still want to insist that Christianity is no more than a religion.

I don’t know about you but in light of this information, it puts Jesus in an entirely different light.
He’s no longer an ideal, or a belief system. He’s a person.
And to put it more precisely, He is a groom in love with his bride.
And not just any bride, but a wayward, adulterous bride.
A bride who is half-hearted at best, chasing other lovers and other interests more than Him.
And still, He keeps on loving. He keeps on being faithful,
He keeps his promises.

In the Old Testament,
He tells his prophet Hosea to marry an unfaithful woman,
to show everyone the way He loves his people. (see Hosea 3)
In the New, He tells us that divorce will never be an option for Him. (Phil 1:6)
Over and over and over again, From Isaiah, to Ezekiel, to Ephesians,
He tells us that we are not just his children, but we are his bride.
Faithless though we might be, we are His, and He is ours.

And like I said before, this changes everything.
It changes the way I view prayer.
It changes the way I view marriage.
It even changes the reasons that I obey.
As Donald Miller once said,
“it’s a far different thing to break a rule, than it is to cheat on a lover.”
I only pray that it changes things for you.

Tenth Avenue North!

This is one of my new favorite bands...Tenth Avenue North! They will be at Outcry this Monday July 12, 2009! Outcry starts at 7pm with the concert shortly after. It's a free event....so if your in the area check them out!!

This video touches my heart....I hope you all enjoy it as well :)

Outcry!

I had my first experience this week with Outcry in Cullman! It is a weekly youth~oriented service that started out similar to The Basement in B'ham. It is a really great service. It kinda acts like a weekly revival...to help hs students...college students...or just anyone to keep their focus on our Lord! My sweet cousin Adam lives in Cullman...and does not miss a week of this rockin service. He invited me up this week because after the Outcry service...the rockin band Kutless would be in concert! So I made the nearly hour and a half drive up this Monday night....and I was really surprised. The Outcry band was great....the speaker was really amazing....and Kutless brought the house down. I left feeling more on fire and energized than I have in a long time :)

About mid~way through the concert....the lead singer for Kutless (Jon Micah Sumrall) said something that really got me thinking. It really got me thinking about "HOME"!! The "home" I grew up in....I moved away from many years ago. Then I got married and bought a "home" with my new husband. Maybe one day we will move and buy a bigger "home" to raise a family. These are usually the things I associate with "home"! Like JMS said last night....now with all the chaos and uncertainty in the world we are feeling really uneasy and worried about this place we call "home". With all the world's economy in crisis....the threat of North Korea...the fear of another 9/11....the world feels awful scary...and we begin to feel unsure about our "home". As Christians.....that is EXACTLY how we are supposed to feel!!!!! We are NOT supposed to trust in the things of this world....because this is NOT our "HOME"!!!! We are supposed to put our trust in the one who created this old world....who gave us life...and who gave HIS ONLY SON to die so we would not have to spend an eternity in hell! With HIM is our "home"...our eternal home.

It's sometimes hard to imagine...but all the things in this world that I think I love...will fade away! Our cars...homes...possesions...all will fade away. But God gives us something much more wonderful than those things....he gives anyone who will believe in His Son Jesus....the gift of eternal life with Him! A life in heaven with glory and riches far beyond anything this world has to offer. An eternity of no more sin...no more pain...heartache...sickness....a perfect eternity with a perfect Father. A forever home with him! That sure beats any old house I could ever have down here :)