The Wedding the Whole World Was Waiting For

The dragon had snapped at the baby and caught nothing but air, and in the visions that came after, John watched that old enemy lose, and lose again.

Next John saw Babylon fall, the proud city that had dressed itself in purple and gold and killed God's people. It burned, and the kings of the earth stood far off and wailed, "Oh no! Oh no, the great city!"

Then John heard a sound. It was the voice of a huge crowd. It was the roar of rushing water. It was thunder, BOOM after BOOM, rolling across the sky. (Every drum in the world played at once would have sounded like a whisper beside it.)

"Hallelujah!" the voices thundered. "The Lord our God, the Almighty, is King!"

(Hallelujah is a Hebrew word that means "Praise the LORD!" It turns up all through the Psalms, but in the whole New Testament it appears in only one chapter. This is the one.)

"Let us be glad and shout for joy and give him glory!" they sang. "The wedding of the Lamb has come, and his bride has made herself ready!"

A wedding, for a Lamb.

It was the same Lamb John had seen standing beside God's throne, looking as if he had been killed, and alive. Now all of heaven was singing about his wedding day.

(In John's time a wedding began long before the party. First the man and woman were promised to each other. Then the groom went off to get a home ready, and the bride often waited a whole year, until one night he came for her with torches and singing friends.)

The waiting was over. The voices sang that the bride was ready, dressed in fine linen, bright and clean, and that the dress had been given to her to wear. John was told what the linen meant: it stood for the right and good things God's people had done.

And the bride was not one woman. She was all of God's people, from every country and every language, gathered into one bride.

Then an angel spoke to John. "Write this down: Blessed are the ones invited to the wedding supper of the Lamb!" And he said, "These are the true words of God."

John fell flat at the angel's feet to worship him.

"Don't do that!" said the angel. "I serve God, the same as you. Worship God!"

(John wrote his own mistake into the book for everyone to read. Then, near the very end of the book, he did it again.)

For a very long time, God had been calling his people his bride, and for a very long time they kept breaking their promise. They ran after other gods the way Gomer left Hosea for other men. A bride like that could never wash her own dress clean.

Still God kept the promise he made through Isaiah: one day he would be glad over his people the way a groom is glad on his wedding day.

Then the Groom came. At his last supper with his friends, he lifted a cup of wine and told them he would not drink wine again until he drank it new with them in his Father's kingdom. He gave his own life to make his bride clean, and now the invitations are going out all over the world.

Jesus will drink that new wine with his bride at the wedding supper of the Lamb.