(iii) LOVE’S STORY
Andrew Burr
I seek to add a simple word about the hymn we began with, that we are closer than we have ever been to the climax of love’s story. Our brother and sister, as we have remarked, embark today upon a new story, but we have before us as we pursue our responsibilities here the climax of love’s story. When did the story begin? It has its origin in the purpose of God, in His counsels: that the One we know as the Lord Jesus should come into manhood is connected in divine purpose with the thought of a counterpart. He was not to be alone but have one who was with Him and not only with Him but like Him so that that counterpart could be with Him where He is. He has given everything in order to secure that for Himself. One of the things that enters into marriage is a readiness to make sacrifices. The Lord Jesus has given everything and it is part of love’s story, the giving of everything. He did it in love, He loved the assembly “and has delivered himself up for it”. In a sense the assembly’s story begins there, it begins with an act of love, an act of wonderful and unqualified self-sacrifice on the part of the One who loves her.
I read this passage to look at the interval in which we are between that sacrifice and the day of presentation. That interval too is part of love’s story. As we have remarked, the Lord Jesus is absent. He is about to return, but for the time being He is absent, and there is a vessel here that represents Him in the time of His absence. Whatever might be said about the public history, it represents Him faithfully. She loves Him and holds herself for His return; and He loves her. The Lord Jesus looks at that vessel here, maintaining His interests and representing Him in the time of His absence and in rejection. I believe the Lord Jesus looks at the assembly with nothing but admiration, and it makes Him long for the day when she will be His in the place into which He has entered. Think of that! The Lord does not just say to the bondman of whom we have heard, you will be happy, but “enter into the joy of thy lord”. I wonder if we have some sense of this now, the joy of our Lord. What is it that makes Him rejoice, what will it be that makes Him rejoice? Beloved, the thing that stirs the affections of the Lord Jesus and stirs His joy is that He is about to have that with Him where He is which has represented Him and been faithful to Him in the time of His absence. Of course He makes His presence and nearness felt to the assembly, although, actually and publicly absent, He nourishes it and cherishes it (see Eph 5: 29). He sanctifies it by “the washing of water by the word”. In other words the effect of the Lord’s service to the assembly is to draw it away from the world and from other things that it might be more and more wholly for Himself. Alongside that is an expression of His jealousy which is a manifestation of love: it says, “that he might present the assembly to himself glorious, having no spot, or wrinkle, or any of such things”. Put another way and very simply, He wants to present the assembly to Himself as like Himself. Spots and wrinkles are not things we can remove, so it is not exactly that the Lord serves the assembly to eliminate imperfections. No, what He seeks is perfection, and what He loves is perfection and what He is going to receive to Himself is perfection. We get our view so clouded by what we are occupied with in the public history of things, and the circumstances in which we are, that perhaps we forget that the Lord Jesus looks at something for which He gave Himself that all the history in the time of His patience has never tainted or corrupted or spoilt. It has always been ready to be received and presented to Himself. The time has gone on, and the Lord’s and the Father’s ways have entered into that, but there has always been something here which could be presented to the Lord Jesus “all glorious”. Now, beloved, we are in the presence of a representation of it, an expression of it. A company like this is simple, but is an expression of something so wonderful for the heart of Christ that it stirs His affections and prompts Him to say, as we have already remarked, “And behold, I come quickly”, Rev 22: 7.
This is love’s story, it is a story that is worked out when those who love each other are apart from each other, even though the assembly feels not only His absence, but also His presence.
I just add a word to make what I have said a little more practical. As we noticed where we began to read, Paul spreads out this wonderful picture as something that is to be held before us as we work out household and married life together. It is not that our marriages are a model of what we see in the assembly, but as we work out the faithfulness, responsibility and salvation of which we have spoken, they are to bring before us and bring into our minds this greater joy, this greater story, in which through grace we have a part; and it is to have a sanctifying effect on our relationships too so that they become some expression of that for which He gave Himself. May He bless the word.
London
3 May 2003
Marriage of Stanley Falconer and Melanie Clark