4th October, 2006

LLOYD HARKNESS

With so many titles and portraits of God given in the Bible, it's hard to appreciate Him, and His heart for humanity, if we limit our understanding to one or two common or favourite profiles. In some way we need to merge them all into a Holy Spirit polyglot hymn of love, joy and gratitude as we respond to God.

PICTURE: Nat Arnett (www.sxc.hu) "As a husband is to honour and cherish his wife, so God honours and cherishes us."

When we think of the heart of God the more dominant title and portrait tends to be God as our heavenly father. God the Father is fundamental to our understanding of the Trinity and probably Jesus' best known parable speaks of God the Father and how He deals with a wayward son.

What is equally important to keep in mind when meditating on the heart of God for humanity, however, is the portrait of God as our husband.

"Your maker is your husband," declared Isaiah (54:5). Isaiah speaks glowingly of marriage and a man's commitment to his wife. This analogy of God's dedication to us illustrates His fidelity, sacrifice and love. As a husband is to honour and cherish his wife, so God honours and cherishes us.

When we kick around His trust, His tenderness, His care, His love by playing life "fast and loose"; God is as broken by that as Hosea was when his wife wouldn't change her sexually "libertine" ways. You could say He is as broken as the father of the prodigal son who hands over the son's inheritance, knowing he is going off to squander his life.

The prophets Jeremiah and Ezekiel both speak of God's covenant with His people as a marriage contract where God's fidelity is unquestioned and His desire is His wife would likewise remain faithful.

In the New Testament, the focus is more on an upcoming marriage, "the marriage of the Lamb". There is talk of a great wedding feast, of the bride and groom being suitably attired, of innumerable guests (some who you wouldn't expect to be there), of a bridal procession through the streets to a decked-out hall, of song and dance and joy overflowing.

Jesus the Lamb is waiting for His bride and that great wedding feast, a date He has fixed in His calendar.

He has done all that is required of a prospective husband. Like Jacob working for Laban to gain Rachel as his wife, Jesus has worked for His bride. He paid the price for her on Calvary, both to woo her and claim her as His own.

According to what was the normal protocol, Jesus has made the proposal for marriage to His church. As the first born son or, to use the more theologically correct understanding, "only begotten of the Father", Jesus is exercising His right to marry first. He has prepared a "dwelling place" for His bride.

And so, having done that, He is simply waiting, with the anticipation and excitement of a bridegroom, for the calendar to tick over to Revelation 19:7 : "Let us rejoice and be glad and give Him glory! For the wedding of the Lamb has come, and the bride has made herself ready".

Both the Father and Son, who Revelation reveals as seated upon "the throne", have pursued a woman on whom they have fixed their eye. Why? Because the only relationship we have in this life which remotely comes close to the intimacy God seeks is the husband/wife relationship.

Amid the titles and portraits of God 'husband' needs to stand alongside 'Father' when we meditate on His love. Each compliments the other and highlights a different dimension of His character and His heart for mankind.

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