The following is taken from The Wedding Party chapter (John 2, changing water into wine) in Tim Keller's book Encounters With Jesus:
There's no more moving narrative than someone willingly giving up something vitally important for the betterment of someone else. There is no more heart-melting joy than to know that someone has sacrificed for you. In A Tale of Two Cities, Sydney Carton and Charles Darnay love the same woman, but she marries Charles. By the end of the book, Charles is arrested and put in a dungeon. He is set to be executed the next day. He has a wife and child and is going to die within twenty-four hours. Sydney, who looks just enough like Charles, sneaks into prison and knocks out his former rival, has his friends take him to safety, puts on the other man's clothes, and stays there to die in his place.
That's what Jesus came to bring for everyone. And that's how he came to bring it. Through substitutionary sacrifice, not just to free you from guilt, but eventually to fall into his arms at the end of time, to be his spouse, so that he could love you and perfect you.
...Every time God chooses a metaphor to help us see him better, it also shows us how he sees us. If he is like our bridegroom, then if you gave yourself to Jesus in faith, it means he must really delight in us....Do you know what the bride looks like to the bridegroom as she walks down the aisle? She wears the most beautiful garments and jewels, and when he lays his eyes on her, he is absolutely delighted in her. And he wants to give her the world. How dare Jesus Christ use a metaphor like this, evoking this powerful human experience? Could it be that he loves his own like that? That he delights in you like that? Yes, he does. How different would your life be if you lived in moment-by-moment existential awareness of that?
This makes me think back to the verse in Isaiah I read a few days ago:
As a bridegroom rejoices over his bride,
so will your God rejoice over you.
62.5
No comments:
Post a Comment