DAY 364

THE BRIDE

Zechariah 13 & 14 and Revelation 21

JERUSALEM THE BRIDE – here we come the final scene (21:9— 22:19) – Scene 8.

You might be thinking, “Scene 8? Wait a minute everything in this drama has been in 7’s and in fact the 7 Scenes have had 7 bowls, 7 visions, 7 seals, 7 letters…7 you name it.” Where did the eighth scene come from?

Consider two other Biblical scenes. It is Good Friday, the sixth day of the Jewish Week. On Holy Saturday Jesus will lay at rest in the tomb. You might recall all the concern about getting the body off the cross before the beginning of the Sabbath which is the seventh day. Jesus’ Resurrection is on the “eighth day” as it were. On this Resurrection Day all is new, the old has disappeared. The second Biblical scene is less a scene and more a narrative. Do you remember the Jubilee? The Law stated that on the seventh year they rested, and then on the seventh of the seven year sequences (the 49^th year), that on the 50^th year they would celebrate the Jubilee! (See blog day 50…get it…day 50).

Be not dismayed though, Scene 8 has seven parts to it: 1-the first revelation, the city of God (21:10-21), 2-the second revelation, God’s dwelling (21:22-27), 3-the third revelation, God’s world renewed (22:1-5), 4-the fourth, God’s word validated (22:6-10), 5-the fifth revelation, God’s work completed (22:11-15), 6-sixth revelation, God’s blessing (22:16-17), and 7-the seventh, God’s curse (22:18-19) with an Epilogue 22:20-21.

Rather than unpack each of these, I want to draw your attention to one aspect of the chapter. Certainly the chapter in glorious and it gives us a vision of the future; consider this quote from C.S. Lewis in his novel The Last Battle. In this scene Lewis describes what it will be like on this “eighth day.”

“The things that began to happen after that were so great and beautiful that I cannot write them. And for us this is the end of the all the stories, and we can most truly say that they all live happily ever after. But for them it was only the beginning of the real story. All their life in this world and all their adventures in Narnia had only been the cover and the title page: now at last they were beginning Chapter One of the Great Story which no one on earth has read: which goes on forever: in which every chapter is better than the one before.”

But the one aspect I want to draw your attention to is…well it is you—the Church.

Come, I will show the bride, the wife of the Lamb. The poor, old tired Church. The Church, not the building, but the people—as a member of it do you ever feel like we cannot get out of own way? We seemingly cannot seem to get the message out? We have opportunities, but then we start internal squabbles, or we get ourselves in some sort of a knot. Yet with all our shortcomings…we are the bride of the Lamb. Pause and just savor that you will be with the Lamb…for that Lamb desires you to be with Him.