The Sweet Christian Bride

In My Father’s House: Wedding Homily

by admin on May 23, 2013 in Scripture, Sermon with No Comments

How many times have you heard Jesus’ words to His disciples in the upper room?  There is so much in there that has become almost rote to us: “This is my body…” (Mark 14:22) and “In my Father’s house there are many rooms…” (John 14:2), and “If I go and prepare a place for you, I will come again and will take you to myself, so that where I am, there you may be also” (John 14:3).

I heard the John 14 passage about preparing a place in the Father’s house preached on at a wedding I went to.  It was as fresh as if I had never heard it before.  The pastor explained that when Jesus refers to the many rooms that are being prepared in His Father’s house, He is using wedding language.

Apparently, in Jewish custom, a man would arrange with his fiancee’s father all of the legal details in order to pay a “bride’s price” for her.  He would then leave his fiancee for a time unknown to her and go to his father’s house to build the room that they will share as husband and wife.

One day, the bride would see her groom walking towards her home, with all of his friends in tow, ready to take her to his father’s house for a seven day celebration.  After that, they would go to their new room where they would live together and love each other for the rest of their lives.

This passage uses the language of a literal wedding, which was appropriate for a wedding homily.  But because Jesus used it to illustrate that He would come again for His bride, the Church, the pastor at this wedding was able to illustrate the bigger picture of Christ’s love as well.

After using the passage to talk about the bride and the groom, the pastor began to preach the Gospel: Christ loves us, He died and rose again so that He could be with us for eternity, and He is preparing a place for us with God the Father.  Jesus will come back to take us home.

For the bride and groom, this homily was particularly perfect because they truly did not want to be the main focus at their wedding.  They wanted it to point to the bigger and higher love of Jesus.

Their wedding might have been the only time that some of their guests would hear the Gospel.  Now that makes for an awesome wedding!


Article was originally published on April 11, 2011.

By Lindsay

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