a virgin wearing sackcloth

I'm reading through Joel right now (all 3 chapters, i know it's a lot), and I feel like lately everything that God is teaching me somehow relates to our betrothal to Christ as His bride. We are in fact the bride of Christ. I am, and you are the bride of Christ. This relationship comes with a lot of responsibility and a massive amount of theological implications (Ref. Gen. 2:24, Eph. 5:22-24, Col. 3:18).

This relationship between ourselves and Christ is tragically beautiful. I feel like so much of the gospel, so much of God's love for us, and so much of our reception of that love is tragically beautiful. Robbie Seay Band has this song out called "Beautiful Scandalous Night," and it's all about the crucifixion of Jesus, and what that means for us.

Here are some of the lyrics:

On the hillside, you will be delivered

At the foot of the cross justified

And your spirit restored

By the river that poured

From our blessed Savior's side

At the wonderful, tragic, mysterious tree

On that beautiful, scandalous night you and me

Were atoned by His blood and forever washed white

On that beautiful, scandalous night

Here's the tragicness of this marriage relationship with God. Numbers 25:1 says "While Israel lived in Shittim, the people began to whore with the daughters of Moab." I think that we aren't much different today. We pick things in this world to whore ourselves too. And this whoring is not confined to sexual sin. As the bride of Christ, any sin is adultery. This includes "little things" like gossip and an occasional crude joke. I am amazed at my own willingness to accept sin in "small" forms. That's like saying, "well, it was just a little bit of adultery. I only whored myself a little today...." That wouldn't fly with your spouse, and it won't fly with God either.

Here's the immense beauty of this relationship though. You might have heard the story of the woman caught in adultery. This story from John 8 is often used to teach on judgment, and our place in condemning others (as to say we have no place in condemning others). I however want to look at this story in another light. What if instead of imagining a random adulterous woman in this scene, we imagined ourselves as the bride of Christ, the adulterous bride of Christ no less. What does Jesus do? He first defends us, and then forgives us. He doesn't let one person throw a stone at us, and He Himself does not condemn us. His love is so beautiful, it is so powerfully moving, and it is so real.

I started writing with the intent to talk about Joel, and I will proceed to do so now. Thank you for bearing with me, this is the first time I've written a blog (This is Sam btw).

Joel, whose name means "Yahweh is God," has a lot to say to Israel. Joel first talks about a plague of locusts that ravages Israel. Israel is devastated, and all of the fields and vineyards are gone. Apart from the effect on Israel's personal needs, this is significant because the offerings are now cut off from God. Israel literally has nothing to offer God, and for this Joel says in chapter one, verse eight, "lament like a virgin wearing sackcloth for the bridegroom of her youth." Israel is called to mourn like a virgin whose husband dies before the marriage is consummated. The husband died before he knew his wife. In this sense the word knew has to do with sexual intimacy. "Adam knew Eve his wife, and she conceived" Gen. 4:1. I read this in Joel and my heart weighed so heavy because I thought of this in terms of us being God's bride. As the Bride of Christ, we are to intimately know God. This is not in a sexual way, but a spiritually intimate way. And my heart broke because I thought of a person dying before they intimately knew God.

My encouragement and prayer for myself and everyone reading along is this. That we could slow down, stop whoring ourselves to this world, be the bride of Christ, and intimately know Him. That we could take time to know God, to search after Him, and find His heart. I think the best way to intimately know God, is to find and share His heart.