On an overwhelmingly hot Saturday in July in 1992, my husband and I spoke our wedding vows in an outdoor ceremony on the balcony of a bread and breakfast. Every bride dreams of the perfect wedding day and hopes that every detail will go off without a hitch. I was no different having such dreams and at one time, I wished that I could say that everything went smooth as silk. Being out in the country, and dirt county roads being wash boarded like no other, when the cake was transported, it cracked and collapsed. My bridesmaids and I came around to the aisle in a horse drawn carriage, my Cinderella moment, and a wasp flew up under my veil as I got out of the carriage, causing me to rip it off my head and shake the veil out in front of all the guests. I then had to have help getting it back into place as sweat began to trickle down my back and face. My brother, who was giving me away had to coach me up the stone stairs saying, “Step, step, step” as I could not see the steps due to the amount of dress I was wearing. My poor bridesmaids were in black dresses as our colors were black, white, and red and as the balcony faced the west, the sun was glaring down upon us throughout the length of the ceremony. I had prepared a song to sing to my bridegroom and while I was singing, a small honeybee decided that it wanted to fly around me and then land on my head for most of the song, and it was all my husband could do to not laugh because of it. As we began speaking our vows, my nephew who was a toddler at the time, took that opportunity to use the metal folding chairs as drums and banged on them for the rest of the ceremony. My husband, who can be a bit quirky, wanted a Papa Smurf groom’s cake, but was denied that request. We could have looked at all these mishaps and flawed moments and said that they ruined our wedding, that our perfect day did not happen because of all of it. However, we look back on everything that transpired that day, July 25, 1992, and smile. Every detail of every mishap created a day that is etched forever in our memories that we can laugh about, take joy in, and share with our children and grandchildren. It is a day that we can say, it does not matter all the external things that went wrong because we were so lost in each other, and joining together as husband and wife, it made everything else pale and dim.
When preparing for this post, I sat down and read First, Second, and Third John, and Jude as these are the books that the phrase from the song cover. “In John and in Jude, He’s the lover coming for His bride.” After I read each of them, I was perplexed and read them again, thinking that I missed or overlooked something. The second time I read them, it was the same as the first. There is not a single scripture in any of these books concerning the Bride of Christ. I had to really sit and ponder the scriptures in these books to find out how the author of the song pulled that line as it seemed to fit Revelation better than John and Jude. As I began to reread them a third time, I read slower and began to see something that made me think of my own marriage. A single key word that made it all click into place. Union, although in the JKV the word is continue.
[24] Let what you heard from the beginning remain in you. If what you heard from the beginning remains in you, you will also remain in union with both the Son and the Father. [25] And this is what he has promised us: eternal life. 1 John 2:24-25
[20] But you, dear friends, build yourselves up in your most holy faith, and pray in union with the Ruach HaKodesh. [21] Thus keep yourselves in God’s love, as you wait for our Lord Yeshua the Messiah to give you the mercy that leads to eternal life. Jude 20-21
When I went to Strong’s Concordance and looked for the word union in the Hebrew, there is not an entry for it. That made me go back to the KJV to see what word correlated with union, which was the word continue. As there were multiple entries for continue, I had to find which Hebrew word fit with the Greek version of this text. The word that I found that connects is yasab. The definition of yasab according to the Ancient Hebrew Lexicon is, “A place of dwelling as the place returned to.” The list of words and phrases in Strong’s under this entry are “to live, dwell, stay; to be settled, be inhabited, make dwell, to cause to sit; by extension: to marry, with a focus that the spouses live together.” Yasab is the connection tying the lyrics of the song to these four books of the Bible!
There are a few other things to note about the word yasab. It is spelled with the Hebrew letters Yud, Shin, and Bet. I just read a Hebrew word study on the word rest or Shabbat in the book Hebrew Word Study: Revealing the Heart of God by Chaim Bentorah, which not only looks at the word Shabbat or Sabbath, but other words that also begin with the letters Shin and Bet. When looking at yasab, you see this Shin, Bet combination in this word as well. The study related the rest of Shabbat in the sense of the relationship between the bride and the bridegroom. The fact that yasab also holds a tie to the bride and bridegroom shows the connection that Adonai genuinely wants to have with us.
As I always look further and into the numeric end of Hebrew words, I held my breath as I looked at the value of yasab, which turned out to be 312. I should not have been surprised that Adonai was going to leave me in awe and wonder, but I was. There was a single word that stood out with the value 312, the Hebrew word issa. Here is what is says in Strong’s, “woman, in contrast to man; wife, in contrast to husband; “to take a woman” means “to marry”. While I was thinking that the lyrics missed the mark, Adonai showed me they were right on point.
There is a line in Ephesians 5:27 that we have heard in our churches for years about being a bride without spot or wrinkle. How is this possible when we are imperfect people? There are spots and wrinkles all over the place, like a wasp in the veil, or seats being pounded on during the ceremony. He simply looks at our hearts and when we are lost in Him, He says like Solomon did in Song of Solomon 4:7, “Everything about you is beautiful, my love; you are without a flaw.” As we are human, we are going to mess up, even when we are saved. It is what we do about it when it happens that matters. When we do mess up and sin, and we do not hide from Adonai, we do not sweep it under the rug and try to pretend it did not happen, but come before Him and say, “I messed up again, Lord. Please, forgive me!” That gift of grace is extended, like the golden scepter that the king of Persia extended to Esther, and He is faithful to forgive us. When we do this, we do not allow spots or wrinkles to set in. It is when we try to hide our sin that the blemishes are there for all to see.
Yeshua told his disciples in John 14:2 “In my Father’s house are many places to live. If there weren’t, I would have told you because I am going there to prepare a place for you.” When a Jewish couple became betrothed, the bridegroom would leave the bride and return to his father’s house to prepare a room for them to live in after the marriage ceremony. He would not return to her until this room was prepared, and he did not even know the date that he would return to his bride to bring her to his home, only the father did. When the father told him that all was ready, he would return and receive his bride to himself. This is the picture that Yeshua is painting in these scriptures. He was returning to His Father’s house to prepare the room for His bride. He does not know the day, the time, or the hour of readiness, only His Father does and when He gives the word, Yeshua is going to receive His bride unto Himself. Revelation 19:7-8 says [7] Let us rejoice and be glad! Let us give Him the glory! For the time has come for the wedding of the Lamb, and his bride has prepared herself [8] fine linen, bright and clean has been given her to wear.
When I think about the fact that I am a part of the bride of Yeshua, sometimes it is hard to wrap my head around it, but then I think of my relationship with my husband. I want to be in unity with him and bring him honor, not shame. I want to reflect positively on him with my actions. I want to be a pleasing companion and I try to go out of my way to bless him. Not because I have to, but because I love him, and I want to. I should carry this same mindset over to my relationship with Yeshua. I do not live for Him because I have to. I live for Him because I love Him and I want to. He gave me everything when He died on the cross for me, how could I not want to live my life in the best possible way to please Him. [28] And now, children, remain untied with him; so that when he appears, we may have confidence and not shrink back from him in shame at his coming. [29] If you know that he is righteous, you should also know that he is the Father of everyone who does what is right. 1 John 2:28-29
Comments