Bless the Bride

This morning in chapel I had a new experience. I preached a sermon that wasn't mine with the author in the congregation in front of me. He has been unwell and I was taking the service for him but he managed to come and join us at the last minute. I wonder how it really felt for him as well. As it happened we have a similar theological outlook and I didn't have to say anything with which I disagreed. Here's the sermon:

Text: "As the bridegroom rejoices in the bride, so will your God rejoice in you". (Is. 62.5)

From start to finish the Bible is full of different images and one that runs right through scripture is that of the Bridegroom and Bride. It starts in Genesis with the story of Adam and Eve and finishes in the penultimate chapter of Revelations with John's vision of the Holy City coming down from heaven adorned as for a wedding.

The prophets, especially Isaiah and Hosea, have much to say along the line of a nuptial mystery between God and his people. It is an intimate relationship like that of husband and wife. In Hosea we see that the Bridegroom i.e. God is always faithful even if the wife is not. In the book the Song of Songs we find two lovers and their love of close intimacy. It shows us the intimacy that there can be between God and the individual, between God and his church.

Today's gospel has reminded us that our Lord performed his first miracle at a wedding in Cana of Galilee. The incarnate God was from the start involved in the nuptials of human living.

St Paul draws out the consequences of all this inherited teaching, especially in the letter to the Ephesians, when he is telling husbands and wives how Christians should behave towards one another. "Husbands, love your wives, as Christ loved the Church and gave himself for her...That he might present the church to himself in splendour, without spot or wrinkle or any such thing, that she might be holy and without blemish". Notice in passing that St Paul calls the Church "She". The Church is not, in the first place, an institution that we can twist and turn to our contemporary attitudes. The Church is a wonderful and sacred mystery like that of husband and wife. Our offertory hymn "The Church's one foundation..." rightly speaks of the Church as "She".

Then in St John's Book of the Revelation we have that wonderful vision of a new heaven and a new earth: "I saw the holy city new Jerusalem coming down from heaven from God, prepared as a bride for her husband".

I would like to draw two conclusions from this short race through the scriptures:

1. The union between God and the individual is very close and intimate. With God's grace we can remain faithful because God Himself is faithful.

2. The priest in the Church is the representative of Christ. The priest at the altar, the priest administering the sacraments, is the icon of Christ. Christ is the Bridegroom, the Church is the Bride; therefore the priest is always male.

I know that this is not acceptable to all Anglicans but I hope that those who want ladies to be ordained will see that we others do not proceed out of prejudice but because we hold the teachings of Christ and His Church in veneration.