Brides, Grooms, and Widows
What they teach us about the love of Christ.
Christ loved the church and gave Himself up for her to make her holy. —Ephesians 5:25–26
In Thornton Wilder’s play Our Town, one of the characters says, “A man looks pretty small at a wedding.”
Boy, that’s true. There he is, standing up there in his rented tuxedo with his ordinary haircut, looking no different than the other groomsmen. People watch his nervous twitching and snicker.
Then, boom! The doors open up, and there’s THE BRIDE. She’s hidden behind a veil, wearing a single-use, pure-white dress that costs thousands of dollars, carrying a bouquet of exotic flowers and trailed by a flowing train.
The audience stands. The music peals. The crowd goes silent in awe as the bride glides elegantly up the aisle, glowing with an ethereal aura.
It’s quite a contrast.
It’s not that the groom is unimportant. I mean, there wouldn’t be a wedding without him. Nevertheless, your eyes don’t deceive you: a wedding is all about the bride.
Which seems a little strange when you consider that marriage is intended to be a reflection of Christ and all His believers. And in that image, God made Christ the groom and us the Bride: “Husbands, love your wives, just as Christ loved the church and gave Himself up for her to make her holy, cleansing her by the washing with water through the word, and to present her to himself as a radiant church, without stain or wrinkle or any other blemish, but holy and blameless” (Ephesians 5:25-27). 2 Corinthians 11:2 says that we are “promised … to one husband, to Christ.”
But we’re far less holy and worthy than Christ. He deserves the spotlight, not us. Shouldn’t He be the one dressed in radiance, and we the nervous groom in the rented tuxedo?
Not in His eyes.
Romans 8:30 says believers are “glorified” by God; not tolerated, not merely forgiven, but glorified. Meanwhile, Christ, in His own words, came “not to be served, but to serve, and to give his life as a ransom” (Mark 10:45). He “made himself nothing,” Philippians 2:7-8 tells us, “taking the very nature of a servant … He humbled himself by becoming obedient to death—even death on a cross.”
Thus, if we, the Bride, hold the spotlight at the marriage of Christ and His believers, it is only because of His deep love and humility, not our worthiness.
But if a groom looks pitifully small at a wedding, a widow at a funeral looks even smaller.
My aunt was one of the strongest, most vibrant people I ever knew. She perfectly fit the phrase, “larger than life.”
Yet at her husband’s funeral, she suddenly looked small, old, frail, and fragile. When the family put their arms around her, she seemed almost to disappear.
If a bride at a wedding is a picture of who we are with God, a widow at a funeral is the image of who we are without him: alone, afraid, and dwelling in darkness.
I think of someone like Charles Templeton.
Templeton was once a close associate of Billy Graham and considered one of the great Christian evangelists of his era. Later, however, he lost his faith and became an agnostic.
Knowing he was nearing the end of his life, he gave an interview to Lee Strobel for the book The Case for Faith. Templeton became emotional when speaking about Jesus. His eyes flooded with tears, he held his hand up to shield his face, and his shoulders bobbed as he wept and struggled to regain composure.
“I miss him,” he said of Jesus.
Templeton never regained his faith, though he clearly grieved the loving relationship of the Christ he disavowed. And the desolation he demonstrated at the end of his life may reflect our own emptiness without Christ.
A groom at a wedding may look small, but appearances can be deceiving. The unending, unmerited love that Christ pours out on His believers should make us exalt Him far above His humble appearance. And the loss of such love — or the failure to ever accept it — ought to be a prospect so devastating that it inspires our complete devotion to its Giver.
That means viewing our faith as less a religion and more a relationship, one that comes with the daily obligation to have Christ and to hold Him for better, for worse, for richer, for poorer, in sickness and in health, to love and to cherish, forsaking all others, until death do us one day truly unite.
Graceful Contemplation
“God loves each of us as if there were only one of us.” —Augustine
Thank you for reading!
There was a lot of activity in May, including 8th Grade graduation, lots of new students coming to TBS, a visit with some of the fam, TBS Beach Day, a wedding, and the release of my latest book, Three Nieces! Whew!
