Presented

My favorite part of any wedding is when the church is quieted and old wooden doors are pushed open to present the bride. I think of the moment when Audrey Hepburn appears at the top of the stairs in ‘My Fair Lady’, and how she was valued as worthy of adornment and then presented—shown off with joy and respect—before an audience where she captured the attention of the prince. Every woman who has spent her life ignored, criticized, and discarded, will one day be presented to the saints as one made beautiful by the God who is beauty incarnate. Paul wrote that he “betrothed you to one husband, so that to Christ I might present you as a pure virgin” (2 Corinthians 11:2).

Acts 9:36-43 tells the story of “a disciple named Tabitha” who was “abounding with deeds of kindness and charity,” which she did continually. When she fell sick and died, the local believers sent for Paul, believing that He could raise her from the dead. He arrived to the house where they were “weeping and showing all the tunics and garments that {Tabitha} used to make while she was with them. But Peter sent them all out and knelt down and prayed, and turning to the body, he said, ‘Tabitha, arise.’ And she opened her eyes, and when she saw Peter, she sat up. And he gave her his hand and raised her up; and calling the saints and widows, he presented her alive.” Imagine the awe that came over the room. This is like our story too, for we were so enslaved to sin that our separation from the light and life of God rendered us as dead. But Christ has “reconciled you in His fleshly body through death, in order to present you before Him holy and blameless, and beyond reproach” (Colossians 1:22). And not just fiercely and gloriously alive, but radiant and beautiful. Paul’s desire in proclaiming Christ was that he would “present everyone mature in Christ” (Colossians 1:28) He describes in another letter that the kind of maturity we are to aspire to, as one whose stature is “measured by Christ's fullness” (Ephesians 4:13).

What an inspiration to pursue victory in our lives, knowing that an actual, physical moment will come those who have hidden their very lives with Christ in God will be presented with Christ, to God. The Bible promises us that “when Christ, who is our life, is revealed, then you also will be revealed with Him in glory” (Colossians 3: 3-4).