I don’t remember where I first met my friend, Betsy, but I do remember how quickly she invited me over to drink lemonade in her garden.
She was a delightfully devout Presbyterian, and Lord knows that every Methodist needs a Presbyterian friend in her life. I took her up on that invite, which led to another, and we developed a sweet friendship. One day Betsy suggested that I come over regularly to have some “away time” from the church.
I began going to Betsy’s for an afternoon at least twice a month. The room she’d offered me overlooked her gorgeous property and included a porch so I could be both inside and outside. Betsy would usually join me on that porch after I’d been there a few hours so we could catch up.
It was on that porch where she introduced me to “the little bell.”
The conversation began like many did for a single clergywoman: “Are you dating anybody?”
I shook my head, ‘no,’ and braced myself for Betsy to suggest that I go out on a date with a nephew or a friend’s nephew, or her plumber, or… You get the idea. Instead, though, she told me about her daughter. She said that her daughter had dated a number of guys and seemed very disinterested in marriage. That is, until she met one particular guy. Betsy could see something different about her daughter from the moment she met this guy. He became her husband. She said, “Darian, it was like a little bell rang for her, a little bell ringing that she’d found her love. And one day… you will hear the little bell ring, too.” She held her hand up and pretended to ring an imaginary bell.
I’d like to tell you that I responded by saying, “Aw, how sweet,” and that I cried happy tears and embraced Betsy, but I didn’t. I laughed. I laughed in unbelief like the people in It’s a Wonderful Life when Clarence said that every time a bell rings, an angel gets its wings. Thankfully Betsy laughed with me. Then she said, “Wait until you hear the little bell though, Darian. Don’t rush. Wait until you hear the little bell.”
I moved away, and with time Betsy and I lost touch with each other. I learned last week that she passed away. When I told my mom about Betsy’s death, she said, “You never got to tell her you heard the little bell!”
I did not hear an audible bell when I met my husband, but I did hear something. Bells alert us to what (or who) deserves our attention. It’s a good kind of alert, and it changes us. Church bells have rung across history as a way of letting people know that a couple has married. The bell not only alerts to pay attention. The church bell also bears good tidings of great joy that a new life has begun.
The last book of our Scriptures, Revelation, is a not-so-little bell for the body of Christ. The ring-a-ling we hear is indeed of a marriage that demands our preparation and our alertness. Let’s begin at the end of the story and work our way back….
In Revelation 21, after many a letter and vision and song, the apostle John describes the end of battles and rise of glory:
Now I saw a new heaven and a new earth, for the first heaven and the first earth had passed away. Also there was no more sea. 2 Then I, John, saw the holy city, New Jerusalem, coming down out of heaven from God, prepared as a bride adorned for her husband. (Revelation 21:1-2)
He goes on to describe the comfort and peace of the new creation, the verses of no more pain and tears to which we cling in the midst of pain and tears in our waiting world. As we enter chapter 22, he returns to quoting the One giving him the vision, the Lamb of God who was slain. That Lamb, the Risen Son, declares:
12 “And behold, I am coming quickly, and My reward is with Me, to give to every one according to his work. 13 I am the Alpha and the Omega, the Beginning and the End, the First and the Last.” 16 “I, Jesus, have sent My angel to testify to you these things in the churches. I am the Root and the Offspring of David, the Bright and Morning Star.” 17 And the Spirit and the bride say, “Come!” And let him who hears say, “Come!” And let him who thirsts come… (Revelation 22:12-17)
I hesitate to use the word, “wedding,” as the conclusion to Revelation. The word has become so ordinary and too often describes a production that takes place around a marriage. The focus too often shifts away from the miraculous covenant of two becoming one to the entertainment of onlookers.
However, as a pastor, what I have loved about weddings is the premarital counseling. This is the couple’s time to prepare for the marriage. It is a time when confession and reflection and intention emerge in the hidden space of conversation with one another and with the Lord.
If we believe that Jesus is coming again to receive His Bride, then we should all be in premarital counseling. This life with him on earth as we await his return is time we can spend in the presence of his holy counsel.
In Revelation 21, John uses the language of preparation. Notice that the bride is not prepared for a wedding, a feast, a reception, or another other event as we understand “events” in today’s culture where some thing occurs. The bride’s preparation is for her husband. Some one occurs, He who makes us One with Him. She is not adorned for the crowd’s adoration but for the gaze of her beloved. He is ready to receive her, and she is ready to go to him. With anticipation, along with the Spirit, the bride cries out in Revelation 22 for the bridegroom, Jesus, to come to us.
A few verses earlier, Jesus has declared that he’s coming quickly. Isn’t it a bit funny how Jesus refers to his return as “quick,” and 2000 years have already passed? He emphasizes here at the end of the Scripture what God speaks over and over to us in the pages that precede: His timing is not like ours, and our time is in his hands. As complicated as the book of Revelation can be, it concludes with so much simplicity. Jesus says in chapter 22, verse 16, “I, Jesus, have sent My angel to testify to you these things in the churches.”
What a summary of Revelation: “these things.” Everything that precedes this glorious conclusion are “things” declared in the churches. Remember that John’s vision began with Jesus dictating letters for seven churches in the second chapter of Revelation. At the of the book, He’s saying (and I paraphrase), “Look folks, I’ve shared a lot with you. There is a lot happening, and there’s a lot I want to teach you, and I don’t expect you to understand a lot of it all at once. But let me remind you of how this whole vision started—with love and concern for my Church, for my people, for my Bride.”
Those letters rang a little bell for the churches to wake up and behold their bridegroom in chapter two. Now the second bell has rung with a message that the bridegroom is on His way in chapter twenty two.
We don’t know what that return will look like, but we can see the Bridegroom now. We don’t when that return will be, but we as the Bride of Christ can use the time He gives us today to know the Bridegroom better. There has been countless time and effort invested in trying to figure out when Jesus will return and what it will look like. These are good questions to ask, but they can become distractions, much like wedding planning can distract us from the glorious mystery of the marriage covenant.
What we do know is that the grand conclusion of Revelation is not a shotgun wedding. It is an eternal covenant of marriage. We are not preparing for a party but for a Person.
So how do we respond? How do we prepare?
Once again, the complexity of Revelation comes together in simplicity. Listen again to verse 17. After the Spirit and the Bride say, “Come,” we hear of two more individuals who join in the cry of, “Come Lord Jesus.” The first is the one who hears, and the second is the one who thirsts.
We listen, and we notice we are thirsty. And then we respond by doing what he tells us to do. We respond by drinking of the water of life. The world will offer us plenty of options to quench our thirst for the eternal, and it is a longing that only Jesus can satisfy.
Do you remember the Samaritan woman who met Jesus at the well in John’s gospel? Jesus told her he would give her living water.
Do you know what was often arranged at wells in ancient times? Marriages. Go back and read the delightful story in Genesis 24 of Isaac’s soon-to-be wife coming to a well.
Jesus’ bold conversation with the woman, who declared him the Christ, was the beginning a marriage, too. She spread the news among the Gentiles, and the dividing walls of Jew and Gentile slowly began to come down as a new union with God formed through His only begotten Son.
John is the only gospel writer who told the story of the Samaritan woman at the well. I can’t help but wonder if it rolled through his memory as Jesus said, “Let the one who is thirsty come…”
What Jesus asks of is so simple, and yet so hard. He wants our listening and our longing. We who lay down our lives to follow Him are his bride. What better gift could we offer to the one we love than to sit with him, listen to him, and to share with him how deeply we long for more of his presence today.
The bells of Christmas Day may have faded into January’s wintr cold, but listen for another bell that never stops ringing. And when we hear it, let us long for what comes with it: the Alpha, the Omega, the Beginning, the End. Our all in all. Our bridegroom Jesus.
Come, Lord Jesus, come. We repent for longing after, running after, and listening after what does not matter. Cleanse us and ready us to be the Bride who waits for you. We are listening. We respond. Come to us, Water of Life, and Well that Never Runs Dry. We love you. Amen.
all good things,
dr. darian
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