Category: bridegroom

Make All Things New

Mashing up today’s readings:

To love as you have loved us, Lord:
You give a new command.
To love as you and be restored—
yet still our old ways stand.
Transform us: All creation waits
to see us made like you.
For us the task is far too great,
but you make all things new.

Give years of joy for those we mourned;
let feast redeem the fast.
The bride shall come in love adorned
to meet her groom at last.
Your foes lie prostrate, length and breadth,
when you make us like you:
The last to be destroyed is death
when you make all things new.

This turning earth shall slow and cease,
our moment pass away—
our bound and shackled hearts released
into eternal day.
And you o'er all things glorified,
God glorified in you,
will wipe the tears from every eye
when you make all things new.

John of Patmos watches the descent of New Jerusalem from God in a 14th-century tapestry, Photo By Octave 444 – Own work, CC BY-SA 4.0, https://commons.wikimedia.org/w/index.php?curid=86993899

One Bride, One Body

Not as in David's era,
the man of many wives,
nor Solomon's great harem
and all his concubines,
but there shall come a Bridegroom
into the banquet hall,
his banner o'er us flying,
and he will wed us all.

And there will be no widows,
no orphans in the street,
but all shall come within doors,
reclining at his feet,
and all the words he's spoken
of mercy and of love
will bless the bread he's broken—
and there will be enough.

No strife or competition 
shall separate his brides;
his bounty and his wisdom
will bind us at his side
and we shall feast together
where new wine ever pours,
one bride forever wedded,
one body in the Lord.

Brautzug der Sulamith Geschlossener Zustand der Kabbalistischen Lehrtafel in der Kirche von Bad Teinach Als Braut: Antonia Prinzessin von Württemberg, Schwester Eberhard III.By Johann Friedrich Gruber – eingescannt aus: Hansmartin Decker-Hauff: Frauen im Hause Württemberg, Leinfelden-Echterdingen, 1997, ISBN 3-87181-390-7, S. 99, Public Domain, https://commons.wikimedia.org/w/index.php?curid=1905265