The Bridal Shop

I see where a major chain of bridal stores has closed, sending soon-to-be brides into panic. While I don’t know the details, I imagine that some brides-to-be had chosen their gowns; others had paid for them; others had been fitted for them; others had the date set when they were going to pick them up. Panic has been introduced into the hoped-for perfect wedding. Perhaps also financial hardship if the gowns had been paid for. The unexpected has happened – what was a sure thing is no longer a sure thing. A trusted company has closed – the brides relied on a firm that was financially rotten – they did not know.

What about us?

Jesus tells a parable about a king who held a wedding reception for his son, strangely none of those originally invited came. Then the king sent his servants out into the highways to bring whoever they could find – all types of people came, it was a crowd of contradictions. According to the custom each attendee was given a special wedding garment to wear while participating in the reception. Strangely one of the attendees declined the garment – he was, to put it mildly, ejected from the reception (Matthew 22:1-14).

Jesus tells another parable about a group of gals who went out to meet the bridegroom at night; five of them thought ahead and took extra batteries for their flashlights, five didn’t take extra batteries. When the hours past and the batteries began to weaken the smart five changed their batteries, but the dumb ones left to go to the 7-Eleven to buy more batteries. While the dumb ones were gone the bridegroom came and the smart ones escorted him to the wedding reception. When the dumb ones finally got their batteries changed they found their way to the grand reception but it was too late, in spite of their protestations they were shut out. (Matthew 25:1 – 13).

Revelation 19:7 – 10 tells us about a wedding feast to surpass all the grand wedding feasts that man has ever staged; and the bridal gown is going to be more dazzling and pure than we can imagine (Revelation Chapters 21-22). We need not worry about whether the One who supplies this gown is going out of business…

but we might think about whether we are going to be at the wedding.