Love is in the air…

I do love blog posts with a song lyric title don’t I?..This one is taken from John Paul Young’s song ‘Love is in the air‘ as used in the film ‘Strictly Ballroom‘.

I am titling this ‘love is in the air‘ because this week, two of our amazing volunteers at Llandudno Youth for Christ are getting married! Yay!!! So looking forward to seeing these guys tie the knot and enter the covenant of marriage.

Marriage is an amazing covenant that God has instituted that gives us a picture of Jesus and his church. “Husbands, love your wives, just as Christ loved the church and gave himself up for her to make her holy, cleansing her by the washing with water through the word, and to present her to himself as a radiant church, without stain or wrinkle or any other blemish, but holy and blameless. In this same way, husbands ought to love their wives as their own bodies. He who loves his wife loves himself. After all, no one ever hated their own body, but they feed and care for their body, just as Christ does the church – for we are members of his body. ‘For this reason a man will leave his father and mother and be united to his wife, and the two will become one flesh.’ This is a profound mystery – but I am talking about Christ and the church.” – Ephesians 5:25-32

In marriage, we see and image of Jesus as the one who loves us so much that he willingly died on the cross for us, to save and restore us. “But God demonstrates his own love for us in this: while we were still sinners, Christ died for us.” – Romans 5:8.

He considered us to be worth it. “Therefore, since we are surrounded by such a great cloud of witnesses, let us throw off everything that hinders and the sin that so easily entangles. And let us run with perseverance the race marked out for us, fixing our eyes on Jesus, the pioneer and perfecter of faith. For the joy that was set before him he endured the cross, scorning its shame, and sat down at the right hand of the throne of God.” – Hebrews 12:1-2.

A Canadian worship band called The City Harmonic wrote a song that beautifully encapsulates this idea – it is called ‘Holy (Wedding Day)‘. In it we see a love story between Jesus and his bride, the church (which is made up of every believer). A love story that is still in the making as more and more people realise the truth of how much God loves us, and how much he has done to make a way for us to be restored to relationship with him.

It is a story that will culminate in a great wedding feast at the end of the age, where we can all truly sing that ‘love is in the air‘.

So this Thursday as we celebrate with two of our volunteers as they publicly declare their love for each other and enter into the sacred covenant of marriage, let us also think about how much Jesus loves us and publicly demonstrated that by dying on the cross for us, and let us look forward to that great day when we will celebrate the wedding feast of the Lamb.

Be blessed!