Many of you know that I spent many of my weekends while I was at the Seminary working for a banquet and event facility in downtown St. Louis. Most of our events during the year were wedding receptions. Given this and my current vocation as a pastor, I’ve seen my fair share of brides.
It has been rare that I have seen a bride who has been slovenly. Most brides have everything in it’s perfect place, along with her team of professional and/or amateur beauty consultants. However, that doesn’t mean that I haven’t seen an ugly bride. When I say an “ugly bride,” I’m not referring here to physical appearance, but rather to decorum. I’ve seen a few brides (and a few more grooms) who have been ugly at their events. Even if it is your wedding, that doesn’t give you an excuse to be rude, entitled, or otherwise nasty.
One of the metaphors used in Scripture for the Church is that it is the “Bride” of Christ. We are still in our preparation phase, the ceremony has yet to occur. Before the Spirit fully prepares us, we can be quite ugly. A certain bit of that ugliness was apparent in our church body this past week.
This past week our Synod president had to issue a letter explaining that a small but vocal group of people claiming our church body were championing ugly views including white supremacism, fascism, violence toward people of certain sexual orientations, even genocide. The letter explained that these views have no place in the Church. As he said in the letter, “This is evil. We condemn it in the name of Christ.”
This comes as a reminder to us that we have some cleaning up to do as Christ’s Bride. This Lent we are called to confession and repentance, to expose the sinfulness in our hearts so that we may be made beautiful by taking those sins to the Cross. There is real ugliness that lives inside us: racism, hatred, and many other sins. Let us not be ugly for our Lord.
Thankfully, Christ knows who He is betrothed to. He has seen even this ugliness and has promised not to leave us at the altar. Instead, He will dress us in white garments cleansed by nothing other than His own Blood. He refuses to marry an ugly bride, and because of that, He will not let our ugliness continue. He will wipe it away and make us elegant and refined. Therefore, search your heart for ugliness. Do not be surprised to find it. But rather, bring it to the Lord who will take it away by the power of His Cross.