I have been a fan of Bob Newhart for decades.  Whether its his stand up comedy, his sketches - who can forget Sir Walter Raleigh on the telephone with King George explaining how tobacco will be the next cash crop of the southern colonies - or his oddball sitcoms, he has always made me laugh.  His TV shows have  left me wondering one thing, though.  Do they really expect us to believe that a short, balding stutterer like Newhart could end up with wives such as Suzanne Pleshette and Mary Frann?  I suppose it's possible, but it got me thinking about beauty and the beast marriages.  As rare as they are, rarer still is when the beauty is the groom, not the bride.  When does the football hero ever end up with the self-loathing wall flower?  The angry Goth chick?  The unstable drama queen who practically lives in the guidance counselor's office?  Unlikely.

But...

If the church - not the church as institution, not a denomination, but the church defined as the followers of Jesus, the universal body of believers - is the bride of Christ, then maybe there's hope for the wallflower, Goth chick or mental case in all of us.  Jesus is passionately in love with those who bare his name.  The perfect 10 has fallen for a mental case.  The Lion of Judah is head over heels for a dung slinging baboon.  The King of Kings has given His heart to a peasant wench. " Let us be glad and rejoice, and give honour to him: for the marriage of the Lamb is come, and his wife hath made herself ready," says the book of Revelation.  Several times in the epistles, Paul compares the church to the bride of Jesus himself.  The church, in all our dysfunction, pride and immaturity, is, nonetheless,  the object of Christ's affection. 

Millennials, I have read, are embracing Christ while rejecting church at an ever increasing rate, and  I understand very well why they might want to do this.  As Gandhi said, “I like your Christ, I do not like your Christians. Your Christians are so unlike your Christ.” I could echo Gandhi's sentiments with story after story of disappointments I've had at the hands of Christians.  But, if Christians are the bride of Christ, to reject the church is to reject the object of Jesus' ultimate delight.  Yes,, the church.  The church that is much too concerned with political power, and not concerned enough with poverty and prayer.  The church that exploits Christ as a means to acquiring the American dream.  The church that rationalizes, resents, rages and rebels.  That church is the bride of the Messiah, and He adores her unapologetically, unconditionally and unabashedly.

There's an old guy in our town named Frank.  Years ago, his wife of 50 plus years developed severe dementia, but old Frank never stopped adoring her.  When she had no idea who he was, he still adored her.  When he had to hire someone to dress and bathe her, he still adored her.  When she treated him as a stranger, or, worse, a threat, he still adored her.  He had her in a nursing home for a while, but couldn't bare it.  He brought her home.  Old Frank is a farmer in rural Maine, so he doesn't articulate how much he cherishes Norma, but when he holds her hand, walks her into church, kisses her cheek, he speaks of love more beautifully than all the words Shakespeare has ever written.  Frank and Norma remind me of Jesus' love for his church.  One sided, illogical, unending.

Jesus likened the church to a field growing both wheat (true followers) and weeds (people who are involved with the Christian religion but without any sincere faith).  He ends the parable by saying it wasn't the job of the wheat to try to rid the field of the weeds.  I'm not proud of it, but I'd LOVE that job.  I'd love to go from church to church and decide who was worthy and who was not.  But then I think of all those who, if given the same opportunity, would want to weed ME out.  I know there would be plenty.  But Jesus said, in essence, "Don't you dare wax that unibrow or straighten those crooked teeth.  Those could very well be the parts of my bride that attract Me the most."

You see, the marriage feast of the lamb, unlike virtually all modern day weddings, isn't about the bride, it's about the groom.  A groom who, as Brennan Manning put it in his classic devotional " The Ragamuffin Gospel" expects us to fail even more than we expect ourselves to.  A groom who tells his bride, as song writer Charlie Peacock wrote, "Cheer up church, you're worse off than you think."  A groom who, like Saint Paul said, "Might sanctify her, having cleansed her by the washing of water with the word, that He might present to Himself the church in all her glory, having no spot or wrinkle or any such thing; but that she would be holy and blameless."

Make no mistake,the perfect love of Jesus for his church isn't blind to the church's 'spots and wrinkles', per se.  He does better than turn a blind eye. His is  a love that delivers the beast from the very curse that stole its beauty to begin with.