Jesu Juva
“Cleansed Brides”
Text: Zephaniah 3:14-20; Ephesians 5:22-33; John 3:25-30
Small Catechism: The Sacrament of Baptism
In the Name of (+) Jesus. Amen.
The season of Advent isn’t just about getting ready for Christmas. It’s about getting ready for Jesus’ coming. He came at Christmas, and we prepare to remember and rejoice in that. But He is coming now in His Word and Sacraments, and is coming again on the Last Day. Advent helps us prepare and be ready for those comings, too, which are really more important for us in our day and age. So that’s the focus of our midweeks this year: Jesus’ coming to us now, and how that prepares us for His coming again on the Last Day.
Now the Scriptures give us TWO distinct pictures of what the Last Day will be like. One, and the one most people think of when thinking of the Last Day is Judgment Day - which usually invokes fear. We’ll get to that next week. It’s the other picture that Scripture gives us that is our focus tonight, and that is the marriage feast of the Lamb and His Bride, the Church. And that is a picture that doesn’t invoke fear, but great joy. But it is a picture many people either don’t know or that gets overshadowed by the thoughts and fears of judgment.
But if you are married, you know what a day that is! Or if you’re not married, perhaps you have seen it. It is a day bridegroom and bride can’t wait to arrive, even if sometimes there is a little fear and cold feet! But that goes away when the groom is standing in the front of the church, and then his bride appears at the entrance - beautiful, radiant, and their eyes meet for the first time. Remember that? Maybe your heart skipped a beat. The day you couldn’t wait to come had finally come.
Now imagine that on the Last Day! The Day we’ve been waiting for, for our heavenly Bridegroom to come for us, finally here. We pray Come! Lord Jesus! for that joy to finally be ours. But the joy that day is not just ours. Bride and bridegroom both are filled with joy. The prophet Zephaniah spoke of that, saying that the Lord will rejoice over you with gladness. That would happen first in bringing His people back from their exile, but ultimately, it is in making us His own, bringing us back from the death and destruction of our sin, to be His Bride.
That’s why Jesus was born for you. That’s what He did for you in His death and resurrection. And that’s why He comes to you now in Holy Baptism. That’s what we heard in the reading from Ephesians, Jesus came to sanctify and cleanse you by the washing of water with the word, so that he might present the church to himself as a beautiful, radiant bride, without spot or wrinkle or any such thing. That we be holy and without blemish. And so you are. And as we read in the Catechism, Baptism is that water, that life-giving water, rich in grace, and a washing of the new birth in the Holy Spirit. And so baptized into Christ and washed in His blood, you are an heir with the hope - not a wishful, uncertain hope! - but the sure and certain hope of eternal life . . . with your Bridegroom.
Now without Baptism, we are no radiant bride. You wallow in the gutter and cesspool of your sin and you stink. But the gift and benefit of Baptism is that it works forgiveness of sins, rescues from death and the devil, and gives eternal salvation - that is, rescues you from the gutter and cesspool of your sin and the one who put you there, and gives you an eternal Saviour, an eternal Bridegroom. You have the words and promises of God on that. Eternal wedding vows. I will be your God, and you will be my people, my Bride.
That’s what John the Baptist was talking about in the verses from John we heard tonight. He didn’t just preach repentance and baptize. As he said, he is the friend, the best man, of the bridegroom, the one sent before Him to prepare His way. The Bridegroom who has now come for His Bride, and so the best man’s job is done. He must decrease. All attention now on the Bridegroom and His eternal vow to you.
And that’s what we rely on and what can give us confidence and joy on the Last Day - His faithfulness, not ours. That when we break our vow (and we do!), when our attention is on something or someone other than the Bridegroom (which we call an idol), we can return to God’s vow in Baptism every day, and be daily washed, renewed, and restored, and emerge to live in righteousness and purity - in cleanness and radiance - forever. If we don’t, we come to the Last Day filthy and unclean and reeking of sin of death. But if we do, He is faithful to His vows and cleanses us from all unrighteousness (1 John 1:9). Then when Jesus comes again in glory on the Last Day, when Jesus comes for us, we will enter into His joy, the joy of Bride and Bridegroom, in the wedding feast of the Lamb which will have no end.
Now with that picture of the Last Day in mind, the Last Day can’t come soon enough! But it has not come yet because the Bride is not yet ready. There are more to baptize, more to wash, more to bring into this joy with us. From the farthest nations and to our nearest neighbors. The Bridegroom wants them, too. To be His Bride. To enter into His joy. That when the Last Day comes it not be a day of fear for them, but that with us, their heart, too, skip a beat when they see Him and the feast begins.
So with that as the Day that we are waiting for, you think that might affect how we live now? Well, how did you live in the weeks and months leading up to your wedding day? Did you live as if it weren’t coming? Or were you busy . . . making preparations, getting ready, filled with excitement? And as the day approached, little else mattered. For your Bride or Bridegroom was coming. And that day changed your life.
Well, that Day is coming. The Day of our joy. You are baptized. Your life has been changed. You are radiant. You are ready. And when that Last Day comes, though it will be the last day of this world, it will be the first day of your eternal life. With your Bridegroom, who promised. And that promise is as sure as His tomb is empty. So we do not have to fear that day - O Bride of Christ, Rejoice! (LSB #335) Your Bridegroom is coming for you.
In the Name of the Father, and of the (+) Son, and of the Holy Spirit. Amen.
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