I have, in the past few weeks, taken to separating in my mind, for some reason, the concepts of The Bride and The Church. Why, or for what purpose, I could not for the life of me tell you. I simply allowed the separation to exist, and my prayers for the two entities, to go out. It was during this time that I also looked deeper into the initial concept of a bride. This took me back to Genesis, and the miracle God performed in Adam’s life. We’re told that Jesus ( Named, actually, Joshua, or Yeshua ) was the second Adam. As such, he fulfilled the intents God has for our world. I read and reread the account of Adam’s miracle. Genesis 2:21 – 24 recounts this event. God put Adam into a deep sleep, and from his side took one of his ribs. He then fashioned out of Adam, his bride, Eve. Could it be, possibly, that while all who have put their faith in the redeeming work of Jesus are part of His Church, that His Bride is a separate group of saints? I am still mulling that over. So many parallels do seem to exist. Adam was asleep, and out of that slumber, his wife emerged. Through the ages, we have seen the Church that Christ ordained fall asleep, and then emerge from its nap every so often… once to proclaim that the Word must be available to all… and then again to separate itself from the Babylonian captivity of the Universal Church… yet again to send out missionaries with the Good News of God, in the place of a corrupted political hierarchy mad with power. In each instance, Gods seems to have drawn from that slumbering body a group of people unwilling to compromise their faith or their God. Again and again throughout God’s Word we find the phrase, “Wake up!” And now, with each brother or sister I engage, we invariably find ourselves commenting that the events of 9-11, “woke us up”. We were shaken out of our comfortable slumber to the reality of the world we now must inhabit. I can no longer think of myself living in this evil place. I’ve shaken the cobwebs from my eyes, and discovered that I am, like Abraham, “A stranger in a strange land”. Once again, God has whispered, nudged, and then finally, with the horrors of 9-ll, commanded his people to, “wake up”. The perplexing situation many believers now find is the peaceful slumber of other followers. “Wake up”, we repeat. “Don’t you see it?”, we implore. And the confused, bewildered responses tell us, “Leave me alone. I must rest”. Is God pulling out of this sleeping body a portion set aside as his Bride? I don’t know. I really don’t. This I do know. Every bridegroom wishes for his bride to be eagerly anticipating her wedding. Every bridegroom wants the adoration and commitment of his wife. And may I throw this out… no bridegroom, waiting for his wife to join him at his side to take their vows, would want to look to the back of the church and see her comfortably napping, blissfully unaware of the day.
