Engaged to Jesus
“You shall be a crown of beauty in the hand of the Lord, and a royal diadem in the hand of your God. You shall no more be termed Forsaken, and your land shall no more be termed desolate, but you shall be called My Delight Is in Her, and your land married; for the Lord delights in you, and your land shall be married. For as a young man marries a young woman, so shall your sons marry you, and as the bridegroom rejoices over the bride, so shall your God rejoice over you.”
Isaiah 62:3-5
I remember the day I proposed to my wife like it was yesterday! We were sitting next to a river and my heart was beating so fast because I knew that I was getting ready to propose and yet my wife had no idea. When I finally took the knee, I would like to tell you that I gave a really poetic speech to profess my love for her, but the reality is that my proposal was mostly gibberish. Had I not been on a knee with a wedding ring I don’t imagine my wife would have understood anything I said between the mumbling and the tears, but the one thing she did know is that I really delighted in her. She gave me such joy that words could not describe and only tears would satisfy.
But there is an even greater proposal that I’ve been a part of and that is with Jesus. Thankfully Christ is a bit better with words than I am, and he professes his love throughout Scripture, but this passage in Isaiah is one of my favorites. The good Lord doesn’t call me babe or honey, but he calls me his Delight! He rejoices over me! Have you ever been loved like this before?! No, you have not because only Christ can love us in this way! He rejoices over us as his bride and promises us that he will marry us. He promises to take us from forsaken desolation and into his palace! In His book, Rejoicing in Christ, Michael Reeves shares an illustration from Martin Luther about our wedding day with Jesus.
“Martin Luther… [tells] the gospel as the story of a king (representing Jesus) marrying a poor girl of ‘ill repute’ (representing us). At their wedding, she would say to him, “All that I am I give to you, and all that I have I share with you.” In that moment, she shares with him all her debts and shame. Then the king would reply, ‘All that I am I give to you, and all that I have I share with you,” At which the wretched girl becomes the queen, and all the kingdom is hers. Just so, our great bridegroom has taken all our sin, our death, our judgment, and he shares with us all his life and perfect righteousness. He has become poor that we might share his riches. It is the great marriage swap, or what Luther called the “joyful” exchange. Christ is one with his people, and so all theirs is his, and all his is theirs.”
In some societies it is tradition that a groom would give a sum of goods to the family of the bride known as the bride price. No groom has ever paid a greater price that our great Husband, Jesus Christ. He shed his blood and laid down his life that we might be made one. Again, I ask you, has anyone ever loved you like this? Christ delights in us, and rejoices in us, and I pray that we too might delight in him and rejoice in his love.
1. Have you ever thought about how much the Lord delights in you? What does that mean to you?
2. Have you ever thought of belief in Christ as a marriage? What do you think about the “joyful exchange”?
3. How should we respond to this?
