I'm Glad She Wore White

I went to a wedding this weekend. The groom is a really good friend of mine, and the bride was a girl that he's been dating for a few months. She also happens to be pregnant. It was a wonderful weekend of celebrating God's sovereignty, not as a "Plan B God," but as a God who is totally in control of all situations, even our sin. (I mean, if you think about it, if God isn't sovereign over our sin as well as our holiness, then he is constantly losing his sovereignty billions of times throughout the day.) Anyway, it was an amazing time of praising God for how he works his will throughout all situations, the planned and the unplanned alike.

Then came the ceremony, and something I was not prepared for. See, normally when you're a groomsman at a wedding, you're main goal is not to really pay attention to what's going on but to try and keep from passing out and getting the bridesmaid you're escorting down whatever stairs you have to navigate and out of the sanctuary as smoothly as possible. Needless to say, when the wedding actually started, I wasn't ready for what I saw. . . the bride, walking down the aisle, in a white wedding gown. Here she was, this girl who never expected to be walking down the aisle with a baby growing inside her, a follower of Christ whose sin just happens to be visible instead of hidden, coming down the aisle to meet her groom in a white wedding gown, the symbol of purity and holiness.

The church kind of went blurry around me and the tears came as the Holy Spirit reminded me, "Jason, that's exactly the way you come to the Father." Here's the thing: I'm a follower of Christ whose sin is not hidden in the least from the Father who knows all about me, and yet, because of Christ, I come before him pure, holy, and totally, 100% righteous. Satan tells me that I can't approach him in white. He says that my past and current sins are too hideous, and that it would be hypocritical to come in white. Then he tells me that no matter if my past has been forgiven, I'll slip up again in the future, so it would be insulting to come to him in white. And yet, because of Christ's righteousness that's been imposed upon me, I come down the aisle dressed in white, ready to meet my Father, unashamed and as if I were a virgin and had never sinned at all.

I gotta tell you, I don't really remember a lot of the rest of the ceremony, except that I know I was given a very special gift by the Father on Saturday afternoon. I was able to see, in real, human form, exactly what happens everytime I approach my Father in Heaven. He watches me walk down the aisle, dressed in white, with a big smile of pleasure and anticipation on his face, ready for me to get there so we can be together.

So, yeah, I'm so very thankful she wore white.