Shepherd Candle Café by Wil Triggs

Jesus said, “I am the light of the world. Whoever follows me will not walk in darkness, but will have the light of life.” (John 8:12)
 
Advent means “coming.” We light these candles as we prepare for the full coming of God’s kingdom.  
 
People who know me know that I love coffee.
 
It started in high school with my purchase of a Toddy coffeemaker, a precursor to the cold brew systems of today. It produced low acid coffee and tasted the way coffee smells.
 
Then I graduated to a stovetop espresso pot. Good in a different way. I’ve gone on to roast my own beans and made coffee in a variety of ways—Keurig, Nespresso, Neapolitan style, French press, the stove-top siphon, Cometeer pods.
 
As I drank my morning coffee a few days ago, a coffeehouse came to mind from my past. It was so long ago, that the memory was like a dream, almost surreal. 
 
The coffeehouse was in the capital city of a country that no longer exists. It was located just down the street from the dictator’s palace. I remember the oversized propaganda publicity on the sides of buildings. Giant faces, repeated of the same man. Giant political symbols overwhelmed the buildings they were on, especially dwarfing the people walking by them on the street.
 
Dictators don’t tend to like Jesus. He doesn’t listen to them the way they want. No, not very cooperative this Jesus—bigger than the propaganda and small enough at the same time to walk alongside the common people on the street. By his very existence he shows that their power is fleeting; Jesus is eternal and caring.
 
This coffeehouse was a place of refuge for searching people. These people grew up being taught that the reality of the material world was all there was. The leader of their country was their ultimate truth, a sort of savior. Except it became obvious to them that he was no savior. And so here was this little café where they could go and discover the truths of Jesus.
 
Before I got there, I imagined it to be a certain way. But it was shockingly not that.
 
Where was the cappuccino machine, the espresso pot, the oversized brewer like we have in the church kitchen? Or even just a home kitchen size Mr. Coffee brewer.
 
There was none of that. I have to tell you that the coffee they served was honestly not that great. In fact, it was instant coffee, out of a jar.
 
But people weren’t going there for the coffee. They wanted to say anything, ask anything. And open the Bible in that place. There is no keeping the Word silent.
 
They weren't really a part of their city or country. They were outsiders, like those other shepherds from long ago, watching their sheep at night. Out in the fields, the angels came, the heavenly sky, radiant with songs that you could see and light you could hear. Glory to God.
 
A sanctuary hidden in plain sight, where the forbidden things could be spoken, considered, believed.
 
Could it be true? Dare it to be true?
 
These coffeehouse shepherds weren't actually tending sheep, but they were being sought by the Lamb, and when they dared to believe, the Lamb became their Shepherd. In their country where almost nothing was true, they discovered ultimate truth.
 
This café was not a dream, but there is another one I visit in my dreams.
 
I step into that café and it’s bigger than it looks; busy and full, with room for more. Every time I dream it, different people are there in varying combinations.
 
Tyler, my friend from Five and Hoek Coffee brews coffee and espresso and the counter is staffed by Leonita, the cheese lady from Caputo’s that Lorraine and I pray for. Joe Bayly is there with a man who looks like he doesn’t belong. Ken Taylor is talking with William Tyndale and the Apostle John. Marr Miller is sitting with the videographer friend that Lorraine and I know from Singapore. My publishing friend from Nigeria is laughing and talking with Jonathan from Tenofthose and Brother Andrew.
 
My sister Barbara is having cake with Marge and Deby, somehow, they seem to know my friend Wambura, from Kenya, who joins them to round out the table for four. Bonnie and Ramon are there enjoying café au laits with Pavel and Barnabas and Norm and Sue.
 
Peter and Anita are at a corner table cooking up something with Mary, Martha and Lazarus.
 
My friend Jim, who never liked coffee, is pouring himself a cup of tea at a table with three empty seats, one for his wife, one for Lorraine and one for me. My mom is enjoying coffee with Lorraine’s mom and Vera, who translated for us in Russia and helps kids learn about God.
 
Tim is ordering Vietnamese coffees for Jack and Ed, Erik and Asaph.
 
At a table near the back, I recognize my only son at a table seated with a man who I only see from behind. Pip smiles at me. I draw near them and see the man he’s sitting with from the side and then the front. He’s younger than I ever knew him and yet, somehow, I realize that this man is my dad. And Lorraine’s dad is there with them, an open Bible before him.
 
I glance into the party room, where the hot chocolate freely flows. Our Kindergarten teachers are in there—Becky, Jennie, Claire, Kevin, AJ, Tom and Barb, Linda, Greg, Megan and Grant—and all those other adults who somehow look like our kids, with Kevin leading them all in singing “I’m Gonna Sing, I’m Gonna Shout, Praise the Lord.”
 
Then my dog licks my face. I wake up and it’s all gone.

Time for a walk and Bible readings and a cup of coffee to start the day.

Prelude to Joy, Joy, Joy by Lorraine Triggs

My beloved alma mater, Moody Bible Institute, introduced me to Flannery O’Connor (I remain forever indebted to Dr. Rosalie de Rosset for the introduction), but it didn’t offer college-level courses on William Shakespeare. I had to wait till I transferred to Wayne State University (Detroit, MI) for that.

Though hardly a Shakesperean scholar, I did wow the professor with my grasp of the playwright's English, no matter how archaic it was to the other students. After one class, my professor, who knew I was a transfer student, asked if I had studied the Bard at my other school.

Me: No.

Professor: Then why do you understand so much of his language?

Me: Uh, I read the Bible?

The version of the Bible I read at the time was the Kings James Version with its beautiful archaic language that expanded my vocabulary as it taught me the truths of Scripture, even with its thee-thou-thine language and canst and mayest.

With Advent beginning next Sunday, I canst overlook the begats of Matthew 1.

I used to wonder why Matthew used up seventeen verses with begats, and just didn’t start his gospel with the birth of Jesus. Patrick Schreiner posted on The Gospel Coalition site a few years back five reasons why Matthew begins with a genealogy: it summarizes the story of the Bible; it reminds us that this is a true story; it highlights Jesus’ inclusive family; it shows us God is faithful; and it displays Jesus as our only hope.

I would like to add a sixth reason to Schreiner's list. These seventeen verses are a prelude to the angel's "glad tidings of great joy" (per the KJV version of Luke's gospel). The genealogy clearly aligns Jesus precisely where he should be, but it also reminds everyone of generation after generation of faithful lives that fall short, people who are less than Messianic. In Matthew's prelude, Christmas joy has notes of severe testing, of fear and loneliness, of abuse and pain, and grief and loss . . . foreshadowing crucifixion and sealed tombs.

In his letter to scattered, homeless believers, James pushes all of us forward to glad tidings of great joy when he writes to “count it all joy, my brothers, when you meet trials of various kinds, for you know that the testing of your faith produces steadfastness.”

He surely also speaks to the people today who are in flight from birth country to another place of refuge or to people in lands of grief and sorrow looking for the strength to keep going. The darkness and silence between the testaments, yearning and groaning, the pain of childbirth in the place where animals find shelter and rest. Our brothers and sisters around the world facing terrible evils, yet Jesus is present in every sorrow, all hardships, Incarnation's understanding and presence, the Spirit bringing  hope where humanly there may not be any.

Joy and trials. Steadfastness and suffering, a mind-boggling prelude to the second Advent that will come as sure as the first one did with pure joy, joy, joy.

Sin and Sensibility by Lorraine Triggs

As we cleaned out our mother’s house, my two sisters and I were delighted to discover that our mom kept our kindergarten artwork, in triplicate because we had the same teacher, Mrs. Compton.

My oldest sib’s drawing of the circus tent was probably an exact copy of Mrs. Compton—that oldest sibling thing and all. At the bottom of her drawing, my sister printed neatly, “The circus.”

My middle sister’s drawing of the circus tent reflected the future nurse in her: evenly spaced stripes and precise colors. Her caption: “The circus.” No mistaking it for anything else.

Then there was me. If our mother squinted hard enough, she could make out “The cirgus” her creative and future editor daughter drew and captioned. We also admired the two “The Christmas Angel” drawings, and the one “Christmas Angle.”  No need to give credit where credit is due.

Such are the true confessions of an editor—I am not a good speller. I don’t trust myself or even spellcheck. I do have, however, a sense of when a word doesn’t look right to me, and I turn to the experts and their online dictionaries.

There are times I wish had a better sense of my sins or, more accurately, enough sense not to attribute sin to a mistake or burnout or a lapse in judgment.

It’s too late for Anaias and Sapphira to wish they had a better sense of their sin such as “Stop. What are we thinking? Don’t bury the proceeds. Don't lie about it to look better than you are."” Instead, Ananias and Sapphira stand in stark contrast to Barnabas’ generosity. Act 4 closes with Barnabas who sold “a field that belonged to him and laid it at the apostles’ feet,” and Acts 5 opens with a deadly property transaction.

It’s astonishing and sobering how quickly we can become de-sensitized to sin, and while it still doesn’t look right, it also doesn’t lookthatwrong. I go on my merry way, gossiping, grumbling, excluding, or excusing any number of okay sins. In a weird way, I am like Ananias and Sapphira, in that I bury some of my sins rather than unearth them and lay them at Jesus’ feet.

When I do consult the expert’s Word, I am overwhelmed (as always) with the beautiful paradox of God’s grace and my sins. It’s this paradox the psalmist sings about in Psalm 130, “If you, O Lord, should mark iniquities, O Lord, who could stand? But with you there is forgiveness, that you may be feared. . . O Israel, hope in the Lord! For with the Lord there is steadfast love, and with him is plentiful redemption.” (verses 3, 7)

It’s when I have the good sense not to bury my sin, but dump it all—good, bad and indifferent—at Jesus’ feet, that I am forgiven. After all, it was Christ who died, was buried and rose again, holding nothing back to redeem a lost world, a lost me.

The Dog Ate My Novel by Wil Triggs

In May of 1936, John Steinbeck wrote his agent Elizabeth Otis: "My setter pup, left alone one night, made confetti of about half of my manuscript book. Two months work to do over again. It set me back. There was no other draft.”
 
As both an aspiring writer and a dog lover, I really enjoy this story. I can only imagine the frustration. My dogs have gotten into a lot of my stuff over the years, but never have either of them eaten my writing. Of course, I’m typing this on my laptop, so there is no paper manuscript to chew. My dogs have preferred slippers or shoes or socks, the occasional pork chop (bone-in), my winter hat from Russia, Christmas candy, hardbound cookbooks, birthday cake, crayons. It’s a fairly long list and that’s just off the top of my head.
 
Still, my imagination was piqued. Imagine months of work chewed up, and no computer backup. Steinbeck didn’t have a hard drive. He wrote longhand on paper. It doesn’t say he was finished with the manuscript, but he must have been pretty close.
 
Things happen to us. Months of work, years even, can get washed away by the salivating mouth that is this crazy life or my distracted brain or my misguided heart. God’s doing a good work and then the good work itself, me, does something stupid. How to handle a setback like that?

“I was pretty mad but the poor little fellow may have been acting critically,” Steinbeck wrote in his letter to his agent. “I didn’t want to ruin a good dog for a ms [manuscript]. I’m not sure it is good at all. He only got an ordinary spanking with his punishment flyswatter. But there’s the work to do over from the start.”

God is cooler about these things than Steinbeck. It’s not as if he doesn’t know already whatever way it is that we are going to mess up. John Steinbeck was surprised when his novel went to shreds, but when Jesus found me having destroyed what others might consider a thing of beauty, he was not the least bit surprised.

“I’m not sure Toby didn’t know what he was doing when he ate the first draft,” Steinbeck continued. “I have promoted Toby-dog to be a lieutenant-colonel in charge of literature. But as for the unpredictable literary enthusiasms of this country, I have little faith in them.”

In the spiritual realm, I’m more often dog than Nobel laureate. God is doing something good, and then I set my teeth on the good works of the Lord and the manuscript goes to pieces. I think of them more as something to play with or gnaw into pieces than a message to the world around me.

But the transformed life, my transformed life, is not really mine at all. The dog didn’t write the novel; the dog’s master wrote it.

Steinbeck had to start over on Of Mice and Men, completing the new draft by August of that year, just about three months later. It’s a short novel, but to turn it around again in just three months impresses me. Besides the book, it’s a story that has been produced as a stage play and in the movies. All of that would have been lost if Steinbeck hadn't persevered.
 
My setup is not God’s. Jesus is always starting over with me like Steinback did on his manuscript. Jesus doesn’t give up. He both loves and likes me. He enjoys me. He has a story for me, and he won’t let me ruin the telling or doing of it.

I am both the dog who ate the novel and the novel itself, a work that seemingly will never get finished, but really will because Jesus has promised to bring to completion the work he has begun. It will be finished. Even I can’t mess that up. The Apostle Paul wrote about this In one of his manuscripts: "And I am sure of this, that he who began a good work In you will bring It to completion at the day of Jesus Christ." (Philippians 1:6)
 
The dog ate the novel when his master was away. My Master is never far away, and he gives me the best words ever to eat, words that can change everything. 
 
Your words were found, and I ate them,
    and your words became to me a joy
    and the delight of my heart,
for I am called by your name,
    O Lord, God of hosts.
Jeremiah 15:16
 
The photo of the soon-to-be-auctioned fragment reminded me of photos I’ve seen of Scripture portions unearthed after centuries. Except the words are English and for some reason, the Steinbeck family or estate chose to hold onto it. How unlike God. Over millenniums of time and the work of many people and especially the Holy Spirit, God’s Word comes to us, not through an auction but through the free and amazing work of God.
 
We naturally think of this dog as a naughty pup. But in a way, he is a positive example for us. We have only to eat the manuscript of God. As people, we can delight in it, taste it, fully ingest it into the body of our souls. Let it shape our lives, even this Saturday, in every way.

"Let the word of Christ dwell in you richly, teaching and admonishing one another in all wisdom, singing psalms and hymns and spiritual songs, with thankfulness in your hearts to God. and whatever you do, in word or deed, do everything in the name of the Lord Jesus, giving thanks to God the Father through him."
Colossians 3:16-17
 
Endnote: The Steinbeck fragment goes up for auction October 25. If you want to bid on it or just see the fragment, here is the link.

Out To Save the World by Lorraine Triggs

Actor David McCallum died last month. For the uninitiated, McCallum played Russian Illya Kuryakin, a secret agent in the TV show, “Man from U.N.C.L.E.” Illya was sidekick to Secret Agent Napoleon Solo, and together these two good guys outwitted the evil agents from THRUSH. 
 
McCallum’s death transported me back to Miss Miller’s fifth-grade classroom, where a small group of friends and I re-enacted this popular 1960’s TV show. Susan, Becky and I were the good guys from U.N.C.L.E. (eventually there was a spinoff, “The Girl from U.N.C.L.E.,” but we were trending at the time.) Kurt and Richard were the bad guys with THRUSH. We played mainly at recess, and occasionally in the classroom, using ball point pens to shoot messages across the room to each other or tapping out code on the desk. 
 
Like Solo and Kuryakin, we always outwitted THRUSH, making the world a safer place. As a fifth-grader also enamored with Emma Peel (Diana Rigg in “The Avengers”) and Nancy Drew, I was thoroughly convinced that collectively, we could save the world and make it a safer place. It was an interesting twist of the Cold War days that the television writers had a Russian and an American working together to vanquish the real bad guys.
 
One would think that by now, I’ve put away these childish things, but rest assured, my inner Kuryakin-Peel-Drew is alive and well. And given all the conflicts and wars and persecutions going on in the world today, the desire to make things right is stronger than ever.
 
On many levels making the world a safe place is a proper instinct. We work hard to create (or re-create) safe places to live, to work, to attend school, to worship, to be accepted and respected. We don’t want outsiders to intrude, and if they do, we’ll fight like my childhood heroes to beat them back.
 
The problem with self-made safe spaces is the intruders still get in. Some might chip away at the foundations of our safe places till we feel like giving up. While other intruders creep in with the darkness of disease, unemployment, divorce, wayward loved ones, failure, dementia, rejection, reminding us that our safe places aren’t safe after all.
 
The end of our manufactured safe places isn’t a call to despair and moan about how awful things are, rather it’s a call to hope and gladness. A call to hope in the Lord’s steadfast love, in his faithfulness, his deliverance, a call for gladness “because we trust in his holy name” writes the psalmist in Psalms 33:21.
 
And that goal to save the world has its fatal flaw—we can’t save ourselves, let alone the world. As the psalmist wrote earlier in Psalm 33: “The king is not saved by his great army; a warrior is not delivered by his great strength. The war horse is a false hope for salvation, and by its great might it cannot rescue.” (vv. 16, 17)
 
That’s very good news for you and me because the burden to save us was placed on another’s back, scarred and wounded as it was for our salvation, and not only ours but also the whole world.

We can still be about making the world a safe place and saving it as we point intruders to Jesus, the only hope for rescue and rest. and as we witness global tragedies, even as we seek proper responses we can fall before God in prayer and plead with him to work in ways we cannot apart from him.

Altar Calls by Wil Triggs

I remember, as a boy, watching Billy Graham on our black and white television set. At the end of every broadcast, Graham would invite people to come forward to receive Christ, assuring them that "your friends will wait." And people would come forward, a lot of people. The invitation would go out to viewers to join in and call a phone number. 
 
The times I went on occasion to church with the lady who picked kids up around the neighborhood, or sometimes with my family or, as a high schooler, when friends with cars would come by and pick me up, that something happened at church, toward the end of the service usually. Music would be playing, and over the music, a preacher or another person of power and influence would be speaking, praying.  
 
With every head bowed and all eyes closed, if you want to raise your hand and say to God that you want to follow him, do that now. 
 
Sometimes the music itself carried the day and then the preacher speaking softly through a microphone or in the churches with no amplified sound, loud and urgent, a strange kind of intimacy. 
 
If you raised your hand, if you are ready, if God is speaking to you, if you want to surrender all, come down the aisle so that all can see that you are saying yes to Jesus. Come.  
 
Sometimes friends I knew would go forward. People of all ages. Those dressed in suits. Women in silk dresses or suits with matching hats. A working-class man who didn’t wear a suit. The rebellious teenager who walked down at least once a month. A little girl, uncertainly letting loose the hand of her mother, stepping into the aisle and working forward to join the others, if there were others.  
 
All of this while the rest of the congregation sang in unison, rejoicing and praying. We had sung the hymns. We listened to the choir. We passed the offering. We heard the sermon. God was at work. So this was how the service ended, people walking down the aisle for the altar call. 
 
Lorraine tells me that in the church where she grew up, some people judged the strength of the service based on the number of times they sang the chorus before the service ended. 
 
I think back on my experiences with this. In a church I began attending on a semi-regular basis, I noticed one lady going forward every week. A friend from high school went forward for the sins she had committed that week, a sort of Protestant confessional. I remember one guy joking that he went forward just so the service could end.  
 
Thinking back on those journeys down the aisle, I found this from a Christian History article: 
 
“Many people consider Charles Grandison Finney (1792-1875) to be the ‘father’ of the altar call. Ordained as a Presbyterian minister in 1823, Finney did not begin giving public invitations until long after Methodists had made the altar call a regular part of their camp meetings. Finney, however, did more than anyone to establish altar calls as an accepted and popular practice in American evangelicalism. Finney regularly called anxious sinners to the front of the congregation to sit on an ‘anxious bench.’ There, they would receive prayer and often be preached to directly. The altar call was also one of Finney’s famous ‘new measures.’ He was convinced that ministers could produce revival by using the right methods, and that the altar call ‘was necessary to bring [sinners] out from among the mass of the ungodly to a public renunciation of their sinful ways.’” 
 
And this from a Gospel Coalition article quoted a description of George Whitefield’s call for immediate decision in a sermon:  
 
“Whitefield asked whether anyone wished ‘to take Christ for their husband.’ If they did, he extended an invitation: ‘Come and I’ll marry you to him just now.’ . . . A twenty-one-year old male convert said that when Whitefield ‘laid out the terms’ of the union with Christ, he found his ‘heart made sweetly to agree to those terms.’ Another convert ran to embrace a friend, exclaiming that the minister had ‘married my soul to Christ.’ . . . Whitefield wrote that many ‘were married to the Lord Jesus that night.’” 
 
I don’t think Whitefield was calling people forward when he invited people to be married to Jesus. Something else was going on of which the physical movement was a symptom. It wasn’t really the beginning, but something happening in the middle of faith for a lot of folks. 
 
The aisle doesn’t matter, but the heart does. We don’t do altar calls anymore, but there is a calling we must heed from God, the call to believe and receive and give our lives to God, not unlike marriage, a vow that lasts longer than marriage and earthly life. His promise to be faithful even when we fail.  
 
How can we even breathe apart from his lungs? How can we clearly see apart from his eyes? Every day he washes my feet. Every day of life, even in my sins and failures, falling back into nail-scarred wrists and the hole in his side, the shoulders of the Shepherd, the Spouse who is always at my side, nearer still to feel his breath on my sin-weakened frame promising peace, falling, rising, holding on to him, receiving new life to face this day whatever it holds. 
 
You still give me breath  
in the valley of death. 
In the pastures green you ever lead. 
My raging waves you still.
You drink the cup  
and do the Father’s will.
When I fall and want to hide 
There you are, at my side 
On the cross,  
empty grave,  
ascending the sky 
Your love is my love,  
I am still your bride 
Your love is my love ever even now, 
You conquer my sin,  
it’s gone away 
In my heart in your heart I hide, 
Faithful eventide. 

Starstruck by Lorraine Triggs

It was probably the timing—a week before our 35th wedding anniversary—that made me read an article about Michelin-star restaurants. In the September 17 New York Times article, “Michelin’s Coveted Stars Can Come with Some Costs,” author Julia Moskin notes that the “Michelin Guide—owned by the French tire manufacturer—is the world’s most recognized authority on fine dining.” Moskin discovered that in “interviews, dozens of restauranteurs, chefs and officials across the country said ‘the status the stars confer is priceless and comes with vast earning potential.'”

Those coveted stars had a humbler origin than I thought. According to the article, “the star system—one, worth a trip; two, worth a detour; three, worth a journey—was devised more than a century ago to guide businessmen as they motored around France on the company’s tires.”

The owner of Southern California’s only three-star restaurant noted that the stakes are higher today when someone is flying from Germany to San Diego to eat at your restaurant.

There’s also intrigue about how Michelin awards those coveted stars. Notes Moskin, “Curiosity has always swirled around how the company does it work: Who are the inspectors? How often do they visit? What does it take to rise from two stars to three?”  

I’d rather be tooling around the south of France on a set of Michelin tires than worrying about rising from two stars to three. But reading about the process of ranking and stars does have a certain appeal. 

It's a human thing. I mean, ranking and analyzing and thinking how some of us are better than others is just so natural. I begin to fret over my own set of stars. And in those mad moments, I think, what’s wrong with wanting more stars? Why shouldn’t someone confer four stars, maybe five, on my insightful (read right) opinions, my impressive CV and my curated treasures. And these stars come with a bonus—an overestimation of myself. Ta-da!

When status stardust blinds me to who I am, I need the clear-eyed words of the Apostle Paul: “Don’t cherish exaggerated ideas of yourself or your importance, buy try to have a sane estimate of your capabilities by the light of the faith that God has given to you all.” (Romans 12:3, Phillips)

From that sane estimate flows another quality, a quality likely unheard of in Michelin Guide world—humility. Charles Spurgeon said that “humility is to make a right estimation of oneself.”

In the Christ follower's world, this right estimation has its beginnings and end in paradox. We hear this in a king's humble cry, “Have mercy on me, O God, according to your steadfast love; according to your abundant mercy blot out my transgressions.” (Psalm 51:1) We see paradox in an ordinary young woman’s extraordinary submission to God, and she sings, “My soul magnifies the Lord, and my spirit rejoices in God my Savior, for he has looked on the humble estate of his servant.” (Luke 1:47, 48) 

The culmination of paradox is Jesus. Paul’s lyrical prose in Philippians 2 takes us to heaven, where Jesus doesn’t count equality with God a thing to be grasped. Then down to earth where Jesus not only is born in the likeness of men, but also takes the form of a servant, and we go down yet again as Jesus “humbled himself by becoming obedient to the point of death, even death on a cross.” And Paul takes us back to heaven where Jesus is not just exalted, but highly exalted.
 
That's another paradox at play. The paradox in our lives where we can have the mind of Christ our Savior, and instead of grasping for status, we shine as lights in a dark world. We give ourselves in service to him and to one another. The day will come when the king of paradox doesn't give us stars for what we've acheved but crowns for what he has done in and through us.

Walking Down the Aisle By Wil Triggs

On September 24 more than a few years ago, I did not walk down the aisle of College Church. I stood at the front of the church, my pastor on one side of me and my best friend on the other. I didn’t walk down the aisle, but Lorraine did. She walked alone, in loving memory of her father, who had died 21 years before. She walked toward me, everyone in the church looking at her, and then at me, and as we drew nearer one another, at both of us.

I was so overcome with emotion that I couldn’t sing. The words of the hymn we had so carefully selected would not come out of my mouth. What if I’m like this through the whole service, I wondered. I’m going to have to actually speak the vows. With God’s help and Lorraine’s hands in mine, I found my voice so everyone could hear. We were wed. Some people reading this were with us on that day.

Our wedding happened in church, the sacred and simple place where we planned to spend our lives together, with the people we would be spending our lives with. I know it’s not fashionable, but it wasn’t about fashion. For us at that time, there was no other place for our wedding to happen. This was before destination weddings, or at least we didn’t know about them.

I remember the wedding sermon, at least the part directed at me, as a call to die, to set aside my selfish desires to serve Lorraine. This was pretty sobering. Jesus dying on the cross for our sin and me being a Christlike husband to her. It has always seemed like the harder calling than the instruction to wives, which seems to generate all the anger and debate. Both callings are hard in their own way, which is why marriage is redemptive as we forgive and ask for forgiveness.

Every week we walk down the aisle of the church to sit in a pew and worship God with everyone else who is there. Every week God meets us there, too. He meets us in a special way at gathered-together worship. But what kind of a bride are we?

In Kindergarten Bible school, we just studied the gift of precious perfume poured out in worship on the feet of Jesus. People weren’t sure what to make of it when it happened, except for Judas, who found it especially disgusting. Some churches do foot-washing, but none that I know of pour out expensive and costly oils or perfume in worship. That’s just, well, kind of weird. Not responsible. A waste.

In the different debates about submission and authority, for those who are not married and feel as if they might be missing out, for those who grieve, or for people that think they have it all planned out just right, is love getting lost in laws and practices and debates about who is right?

If we give ourselves over to loving Jesus, what might we do? Dare we even consider the question? Jesus died for my sins, and I have new life in the resurrection. But does Jesus have my heart? Has he captured it or am I holding something back? I lost my voice for a few moments at the front of College Church as Lorraine approached me. But as Christ stands at the front and we draw near to him, how can we break the jar and pour it out onto his feet? Maybe it’s not losing your voice in the moment of love but finding it in the awe of the simple healing touch of his cloak. It’s not losing our voice but daring to speak of his wondrous works. Are we silent for fear that we might confuse people, or they might think we’re drunk or mad?

What kind of a bride are we? Church, not me, all of us together, mysteriously, are the object of his love and delight.

Let love burn like the Pentecostal fires, giving voice where once we dared not speak, love for Jesus in worship, and gratitude for how he did what no one else dared to do, for the wisdom of God that would dream of redemption that none of us humans would have ever devised or chosen even if we had.

We are waiting for that wedding day, when the kingdom that is now and yet not yet has come, and, in our resurrected splendor, we at long last see Jesus, there waiting and welcoming us—the One whom our hearts adore and worship.

Golden ring of eternity
When all the dross is burned away
Radiant we stand before his lovely gaze.
Hand in hand before the throne we go
Nothing left but to love and adore
Engagement ring, a thorn-crafted stone
Await the trumpet call, never again alone.

Let us rejoice and exult and give him the glory, for the marriage of the Lamb has come, and his Bride has made herself ready (Revelation 19:7)