The Good wedding

Watched an odd movie last night: Rachel Getting Married. A girl gets out of rehab just in time for her sister's wedding. The story is filmed increasingly real time. Little editing, just footage of people trying to be happy and celebrate while bumping into all kinds of unsolvable problems and weirdness. They all more or less manage, but there is no separating of good and bad, it is all swirled so tightly together that it even shows up in a scene of a dishwasher loading contest.

Is there hope for the genuine removal of all that is wrong, or do we just need to cope? The wedding party presented in the Apocalypse is one without embarrassing toasts, drunken missteps and so on. It is a thoroughly joyous occasion because the perennial question has been dramatically resolved: How can God be both Great and Good in a world like this?

The answer is shown to be that the world is not like this, it is passing from like this to like that. That, an evil-judged world and a goodness restored and flourishing world, is the world that fully reveals the Greatness and Goodness of God. The daunting task now is for those who have tasted that God is Great and Good to live with that confidence even while wading through a world like this, not yet like that.

Revelation 19

^1-3 I heard a sound like massed choirs in Heaven singing, Hallelujah!
The salvation and glory and power are God's—
his judgments true, his judgments just.
He judged the great Whore
who corrupted the earth with her lust.
He avenged on her the blood of his servants.
Then, more singing:
Hallelujah!
The smoke from her burning billows up
to high Heaven forever and ever and ever.

⁴The Twenty-four Elders and the Four Animals fell to their knees and worshiped God on his Throne, praising,

Amen! Yes! Hallelujah!

⁵From the Throne came a shout, a command:

Praise our God, all you his servants,
All you who fear him, small and great!

^6-8Then I heard the sound of massed choirs, the sound of a mighty cataract, the sound of strong thunder:

Hallelujah!
The Master reigns,
our God, the Sovereign-Strong!
Let us celebrate, let us rejoice,
let us give him the glory!
The Marriage of the Lamb has come;
his Wife has made herself ready.
She was given a bridal gown
of bright and shining linen.
The linen is the righteousness of the saints.

⁹The Angel said to me, "Write this: 'Blessed are those invited to the Wedding Supper of the Lamb.'" He added, "These are the true words of God!"

¹⁰I fell at his feet to worship him, but he wouldn't let me. "Don't do that," he said. "I'm a servant just like you, and like your brothers and sisters who hold to the witness of Jesus. The witness of Jesus is the spirit of prophecy."