With all the noise in the world, do you hear the voice of God? Your calendar tells you what to do, but do you remember who you are? Being comes before doing. This is a call to put first things first. Return to the Lord with this daily pattern of prayer and devotion. Set aside this time as a sanctuary. Find a space free of distraction and follow this pattern.
Invocation
In the name of the Father, and of the Son, and of the Holy Spirit. Amen.
Invitation
O Lord, your scars are your trophies, proof of your unfailing love for me. I am haunted by the guilt of my past, the sins of my present, and my fear of the future. Lord, at the cross you said, “It is finished.” So I stop my worry. I rest in you. You have done it all. Amen.
Confession
“Jesus, remember me when you come into your kingdom.” Lord, forgive my fugitive ways. I turn and run from you. Forgive my criminal acts of hypocrisy and self-righteousness. Forgive my violations of arrogance and selfishness. Forgive me for denying you, ignoring you, and disregarding you. I am the one at fault. I have no other help but to turn my face to you and plead, “Jesus, remember me when you come into your kingdom.”
Word: Revelation 21:2
“And I saw the holy city, new Jerusalem, coming down out of heaven from God, prepared as a bride adorned for her husband.”
Meditation: Bound in Perfect Harmony
Today’s meditation is written by Megan Roegner.
When I got married to Jeremy, one of our readings was from Colossians 3, including verses 12-14:
“Put on then, as God’s chosen ones, holy and beloved, compassionate hearts, kindness, humility, meekness, and patience, bearing with one another and, if one has a complaint against another, forgiving each other; as the Lord has forgiven you, so you also must forgive. And above all these put on love, which binds everything together in perfect harmony.”
My father-in-law, who is a pastor, married us, and in his homily, he compared wedding clothes with the phrasing in Colossians 3, which tells us to “put on” compassion, kindness, humility, meekness, patience, and love. The idea was that a wedding is a brief moment of excitement and finery, but marriage is long-lasting and needs God’s sustaining love.
Poets have long pondered the difference between the joy of falling in love and the reality of living in love—the difference between love as a feeling and love as an action. In “Ode on a Grecian Urn,” John Keats yearns for the experience of the young lover on the vase who is chasing his beloved. Because they exist only in art, he will never catch her; he will always be frozen in the thrill of infatuation:
“More happy love! more happy, happy love!
For ever warm and still to be enjoy’d,
For ever panting, and for ever young.” (lines 25-27)
Similarly, C.S. Lewis described joy as “an unsatisfied desire which is itself more desirable than any other satisfaction.”
I don’t want to suggest that Jeremy and I have ever wished, as my father-in-law put it, for “new clothes” during our marriage. Our marriage is one of the greatest joys and blessings of my life. But it’s not an endless celebration. To continue the clothes analogy, between our jobs and young children, we are definitely in a sweatpants phase of life. For even the most devoted lovers, life intrudes with its busyness and conflicts and complications.
But what if it didn’t?
In Revelation 21, in the new heaven and earth, God’s people, the “new Jerusalem,” are compared to a “bride adorned for her husband.” Imagine the most exciting, perfect moment of your life. Now imagine it lasting forever. Imagine the lover on Keats’ urn catching his beloved and the thrill never fading.
In Song of Songs, another story about a lover and his beloved, the bride sings, “love is strong as death/ jealousy is fierce as the grave” (8:6). In the new heaven and earth, love is stronger than death. Perfect, uncomplicated, pure love in all of its excitement and beauty lasts forever. In C.S. Lewis’s terms, we are simultaneously desirous and satisfied for eternity. In the new heaven and earth, we are bound together with God, just as we were meant to be. Our joy is constant and forever: perfect harmony.
Lord, when we are tired and longing for “new clothes,” help us remember the unending joy that is waiting for us in eternity. Thank you for your constant, perfect love. Amen.
Benediction
Now may the God of peace who brought again from the dead our Lord Jesus, the great shepherd of the sheep, by the blood of the eternal covenant,equip you with everything good that you may do his will, working in us that which is pleasing in his sight, through Jesus Christ, to whom be glory forever and ever. Amen. (Heb. 13:20-21)