I sat there at the edge of the water. It flowed down washing away the dirt and filth that poured into it. I held in my hands an idol, a symbol of the sins of my life, a symbol of the bondage where I willingly walked back to Egypt and screamed “GIVE ME YOUR GODS!”

Derek Webb – Wedding Dress
 
If you could love me as a wife
And for my wedding gift, your life
Should that be all I’ll ever need
Or is there more I’m looking for
And should I read between the lines
And look for blessings in disguise
To make me handsome, rich, and wise
Is that really what you want
(chorus)
 
I am a whore I do confess 
But I put you on just like a wedding dress
And I run down the aisle
I’m a prodigal with no way home
But I put you on just like a ring of gold
And I run down the aisle to you
So could you love this bastard child
Though I don’t trust you to provide
With one hand in a pot of gold
And with the other in your side
I am so easily satisfied
By the call of lovers less wild
That I would take a little cash 
Over your very flesh and blood
(chorus)
Because money cannot buy
A husbands jealous eye
When you have knowingly deceived his wife
 
I am a whore I do confess 
But I put you on just like a wedding dress
And I run down the aisle
I’m a prodigal with no way home
But I put you on just like a ring of gold
And I run down the aisle to you
 
In a moment I would leave Egypt…

Last September one of the funniest men on earth, Matt Korrel, preached on baptism. He gave an excellent example of how some people are so hesitant to  become Christians, to commit to God. They say “I just need to know more.” Matt compared that to needing to know everything before you watch Dora the explorer. If you needed to know all the characters names before you watched Dora you may have never actually turn the TV on. He then compared that to how some of us want to know everything before we have children, but if we waited until we knew about children before we had them, we would never have them.

Our culture has invaded our hearts and minds and ripped away the wonder and exploration from our lives. No longer are we able to live and make decisions, we are so exhaustively pumped with information that we absorb it desperately before we choose something. Our comparative and choice-laden society has made us need to know every facet of something before we invest in it. We must analyze something endlessly, calculate risk, reassess, and often freeze undecided. Matt talked about relationships. If we know everything about marriage before marriage, well we would simply never get married!

Our thirst for knowledge has assaulted and destroyed our appreciation for learning through experience. As I sat there listening to Matt speak I thought of a story I once heard.

In a Jewish wedding the groom would hold a cup of wine up to the bride to be. She would look into it. Like the American wedding vow, this was the moment of decision. This drink represented the sharing of two lives. It was the “I do.” As the beautiful bride stood there a choice presented itself. Drink, taste new life, embrace this change and give up your old life. Or drink not, walk away, run. As she pressed the cup to her lips she would be saying to the groom “I choose you, I choose to live the rest of my life with you, I am vowing my life to be yours.” I can imagine the sorrow when that cup was never drank, I can imagine the extreme fears that play themselves out in the brides head as the wine sits in that cup. Is he strong enough? Will he take care of me? Am I losing my freedom? Is this settling?

It is a terrifying thing to give your life to another person. Let alone a hairy, confusing, and strange thing such as a man. Yet the custom always left a profound impact on me. One time it was used to point out the similarity between marriage and the Christian ceremony of Communion.

Communion. I used to think of it as just Passover. Just. I put communion down as a strange and somber festival I would never understand. I put it far from my mind and heart as representing the deepest of human moments. It carries not only the story of redemption and rescue from an evil Pharaoh, but so much more. I never saw the real weight and power of communion. As carrying with it the spirit of a wedding, a celebration of life, a joining of souls to become one. When I heard that the cup of wine symbolized so much in a wedding I began to see the beauty of communion. The beauty that Christ is wedding Himself to the church. It is a renewal of our vows, a time to call back on purity, to cling to our maker, to turn our heart toward the very one who made us. It is no wonder we are not supposed to take it lightly.

How hurtful and absolutely destructive it is when someone takes the vows of a relationship and wedding lightly! It marrs the soul in ways we cannot comprehend. It cuts our souls into pieces the same way Voldemort made a Horicrux. It is one of the most intimate moments where we betroth our very soul to the one who knit us together. In the bible the vow was something that when broken was serious enough to result in death. Yet the law is not an ugly nor brutal chain, it is a way that God desperately says to honor marriage. He cries out for us to protect it, for the only thing that unfaithfulness does is destroy and mar the beauty of our relationship. It violates our soul in ways we cannot understand. If we saw how our unfaithfulness destroys us we should shudder and the pure destructive power of sin. There is this powerful message God sent us in His law.

The death of Christ was this moment where God Himself decided to fill that cup with blood. Every drop of blood of blood flowed and spilt to fill the needed vessel for our vow. I look at how often I have drank that wine of the covenant, I have said “I will marry you Christ, I will be faithful.” Yet I said it as a fool in haste. I did not understand the cost nor what it cost Him!

Communion is something that we should take as serious as possible, yet like a wedding it is a time of great and festive joy! I’m so guilty. The blood is on my hands that I have been adulterous to my lover Christ. I have walked away from vows, I have chosen other lovers, I have ran towards sin as if I was running toward the prize. It is here that this last week I have really sat back and looked at that cost, that beauty, that wondrous atonement.

There I am back in Egypt. I am standing there wondering if wandering the wilderness is worth it, should I follow? Should I stay behind with the good food and the familiarity, or should I put my hope in something strange and unseen and wander off into the hot sand hoping that one day I may see a promised land.

I am back at the river.

In my hand I held an idol. Every time I drank from that cup of blood and renewed my vows with Christ I secretly thumbed the idol. I clutched onto it. It tasted of ash and death and decay yet I believed it to be the sweet substance of honey, life, and hope. I went to my idol for comfort, knowing that as I am betrothed to Christ He has not came to bring me home yet. I would hold that idol and say “I hope you can bring me some comfort while my Lord is away, for I don’t know when He will return.” It was a desperate cry for the peace and hope that Christ offers yet it was so unsatisfying.

I am back at the river looking down into that water.

I held that idol in my hand and glanced it over. It was mere stone and wood, sin and depravity. It was for this that I devalued the currency of the blood of Christ. It was for this that I let the death of God seem a small and trite exercise in my life. It was here that I put on a wedding dress and ran down the aisle while my filth still stained my heart and hands. Yet…

Christ held that cup to my lips and said “Drink my bride, drink and live.”

Christ took that cup that cost Him more than I will ever understand or know and said I am wonderful, He said I am not an accident, I am a child of God. He called me part of His very body, the church. He called me and said that I am worth dying for. That nothing on earth was more valuable than His bride, His people. He loved us despite our sin, our unfaithfulness, our darkness. Yet unlike this worldly form of forgiveness where we say we forgive and withhold our trust, Jesus took it so much further. He clothes us in love, righteousness, value. He called us righteous, wonderful, beautiful.

So I took my Idol. I tossed it into the river. With joy I tossed it and watched it stumble on downstream, devoured by the waves, crushed by the blood of Christ, decimated by the stronghold destroying word of God. I bought some grape juice and bread. I went to a tall place alone and renewed my vows. I love being a child of God.

Derek Webb – The Church

I have come with one purpose 
to capture for myself a bride 
by my life she is lovely 
by my death she’s justified 
 
I have always been her husband 
though many lovers she has known
so with water I will wash her
and by my word alone 
 

So when you hear the sound of the water 
you will know you’re not alone 

Chorus: ‘Cause I haven’t come for only you 
but for my people to pursue you cannot care for me with no regard for her if you love me you will love the church

I have long pursued her 
as a harlot and a whore 
but she will feast upon me 
she will drink and thirst no more 

So when you taste my flesh and my blood 
you will know you’re not alone 

Chorus:
There is none that can replace her 
though there are many who will try 
and though some may be her bridesmaids 
they can never be my bride

Courageous – Casting Crowns
 
we were made to be courageous we were made to lead the way we could be the generation that finally breaks the chains
 
we were made to be courageous we were made to be courageous

we were warriors on the front lines, standing unafraid. but now we’re watchers on the side lines, while our families slip away. where are you men of courage? you were made for so much more. let the pounding of our hearts cry, we will serve the Lord.
 
we were made to be courageous, and were taking back the fight. we were made to be courageous, and it starts with us tonight. the only way we’ll ever stand, is on our knees with lifted hands. make us courageous, 
 
Lord make us courageous. this is our resolution, our answer to the call, we will love our wives and children, and refuse to let them fall. we will reignite the passion, that we buried deep inside. may the watchers become warriors, let the men of God arise.
 
Chorus
 
Background: seek justice, love mercy, walk humbly with your God seek justice, love mercy, walk humbly with your God
 
Lead singer:  In the war of the mind i will make my stand,  in the battle of the heart, in the battle of the hands. in the war of the mind i will make my stand,  in the battle of the heart, in the battle of the hands
 
Chorus

Written August of Last Year, This was the start of the best spiritual journey of my life.