Wearing White - Revelation 19:1-10
When you think of weddings, what is one of the primary concerns during the preparation for the bride? For many, it's the dress.
It is easy to see that those wedding dresses come in all kinds of designs and lengths. One thing that many dresses have in common, though, is their color. While some brides do not, many brides do choose to wear the traditional white.
What is the reason behind the tradition of the bride wearing white?
Well, there are a couple of ways to look at it.
A little girl at a wedding asked, “Mommy, why do brides always wear white?” The mom replied, “Because they’re happy, dear.”
Halfway through the wedding the girl whispered, “Mommy, if brides wear white because they’re happy, then why do men wear black?”
Historically speaking, the white wedding dress did not become the primary popular color of dress until 1840 when Queen Victoria choose to depart from typical royal wedding attire, which often was a red dress with white and silver embroidery. However, within a decade of Queen Victoria wearing the white dress, etiquette books were declaring white to be the traditional color dating back centuries. The reason for the white dress, they claimed, was symbolic, not for happiness, but to indicate the bride’s purity and innocence.[i]
If the wedding of Prince William and Catherine was “the wedding of the century,’ as many proclaimed it was, then the wedding that we encounter in today’s reading from Revelation is the “wedding of eternity.” This wedding is one of upmost significance, but to see all of the significance, we need to reflect a moment on what has come before it.
Last week as we reflected on “The War To End All Wars” or actually “The War That Never Was,” we read as the kings of the world gathered for war against the faithful of God, and then God intervened. I shared with you last week that in the chapters that follow, 17 and 18, John is given a symbol filled vision of God’s judgment on Rome. The symbolism used is significant for our understanding of today’s passage. John describes Rome, not as a city, but as a harlot named Babylon. Rome is depicted as an impure woman, and John’s vision depicts the alliance of kings with Rome as the commitment of fornication, and the success of the merchants as living in luxury with this prostitute. Chapters 17 and 18 declare not only the judgment of God and destruction of the persecution, but the mourning of those who had aligned themselves with her, and thought trying to distance themselves from her in her judgment, realize that their times of success are now over.
With the judgment passed, and the persecution over, we read as a great rejoicing takes place in Heaven: “Hallelujah! Salvation and glory and power to our God, for his judgments are true and just; he has judged the great whore who corrupted the earth with her fornication, and he has avenged on her the blood of his servants…Hallelujah! The smoke goes up from her forever and ever…Amen. Hallelujah!...Hallelujah! For the Lord our God the Almighty reigns. Let us rejoice and exult and give him the glory, for the marriage of the Lamb has come, and his bride has made herself read; to her it has been granted to be clothed with fine linen, bright and pure….”
With the end of the persecution, comes rejoicing, and in the midst of rejoicing, there comes the announcement of a wedding. Whose wedding?
The groom is the Lamb…and we remember that this Lamb is the Lamb that appeared to have been slain, but lives…this Lamb is the Lion of Judah…this Lamb is none other than Jesus Christ, the Son of God.
But who is the bride who has made herself ready? We have not been given any clues to this earlier. The clues come later, in chapter 21, as an angel comes to John and says, “’Come, I will show you the bride, the wife of the Lamb.’ And in the spirit he carried me away to a great, high mountain and showed me the holy city Jerusalem coming down out of heaven from God.” It is “New Jerusalem” that is the bride of the Lamb…New Jerusalem is the gathering of all the people of God…and as we have come to understand through our reading of Revelation, the people of God comprise the Church…so it is the Church who is the bride of Christ.
Here we have the hope following the end of the persecution…not only has the persecution ended, but the people who had undergone persecution now understand that they are to be joined eternally to the Lamb in the most sacred of covenants. God has long used the image of husband and wife to paint the picture of the relationship between Himself and his people. It is found repeatedly through the prophets of the Hebrew Scriptures, particularly in Jeremiah, Isaiah, and in the illustrative marriage between Hosea and his wife, Gomer. In the New Testament, Jesus shares the parable of the ten bridesmaids, and Paul compares the relationship of a husband and his wife to the relationship between Christ and the Church.
“…and his bride [the Church] has made herself ready; to her it has been granted to be clothed with fine linen, bring and pure”…Here we come with the white dress…a few translations reference the bride’s linen as white, while others describe it simply as “fine linen, bright and pure….” The vision of this bride contrast sharply with the harlot Babylon…while the harlot and kings were guilty of fornication and the merchants of living in luxury with the prostitute…the bride’s garments reflect purity and cleanness. Does this mean that all morality that God is concerned with has to do with sexual morality or immorality? No…we remember that throughout the letters to the seven churches, and tracing it back to the prophets of the Hebrew Scriptures, any unfaithfulness to God is depicted as sexual immorality…any alignment or loyalty to someone or something other than God is referred to as fornication. So in turn, to be bright and pure, to wear the fine linen, indicates faithfulness, loyalty, staying committed to God…”for the fine linen is the righteous deeds of the saints.” These righteous deeds are not about works…we are not talking about works righteousness here, but it is through the faithfulness of the saints, through the refusal of the people of God to cave in during persecution and align themselves with their persecutor, through refusing to bow in worship to the emperor, that God’s people have been composed into the fine linen of Christ’s bride.
Now before we get all excited and think that this word of John to the people of God suggests that we can work ourselves into being that bride adorned in bright and pure linen, before we think we can make our own wedding dress through even our faithfulness, we might want to reread this passage carefully… “his bride has made herself ready; to her it has been granted to be clothed with fine linen, bright and pure…” “To her it has been granted…to her it has been given…she has been allowed to…” It is not that the Church has, on its own, become pure and spotless, that the Church has been cleansed of all sinners…for if you show me a church empty of sinners, I’ll show you a church where dust is gathering because no one is in it…it is only through the grace of God that the church is able to be adorned in these pure garments…it is a garment given to her by God…she finds herself victoriously clothed in garments that have been washed in the blood of the Lamb….and she has responded to the grace offered her and made herself ready.
My brothers and sisters, these are the choices that each of us has today. Will we reject the temptation to have an affair with Babylon? Will we refuse to compromise our faith like the kings of the earth so that we can have power over others? Will we refuse to compromise our faith like the merchants of the land just to make a better profit? Will we accept the grace that God offers us to cleanse us from our sin, and clothe ourselves in the garments that Christ offers and remain faithful to God in all things and at all times.
Is the marriage to the Lamb worth it? In the opening scene of Bride Wars, Emma and Liv had a dream, “a new dream, that one day they would find that one person who would stand by them no matter what….” My brothers and sisters, there is One who will stand by us no matter what, everyone else will disappoint us at some point. However, Christ will be with us to the end of the age…it doesn’t matter where we are, it doesn’t matter what is happening to us, it doesn’t matter where we’ve been…when we accept the grace He offers to us, and put on that fine linen…we will find that He is with us, and will remain with us…whether our lives are better or worse; whether we are rich or poor; whether we are sick or healthy…and then not even at death do we part…
“Blessed are those who are invited to the marriage supper of the Lamb.”
In the Name of the Father and of the Son and of the Holy Spirit, Amen.
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