Here Comes the Bride All Dressed in Jasper

Let your light so shine…

Matt 5:16 KJV

In 1991, Life cereal placed on the back of its box a cornucopia of images and pictures plastered closely together with the question, “Where is Waldo?” The hunt was on and after a diligent search I found the goofy-liking guy hiding behind a palm branch. I was pleased with myself that I found him before I was done with my cereal. No one likes to be outfoxed so early in the morning.

In Revelation 21, we are introduced to the Bride of Christ, the wife of the Lamb. However, a careful reading of the chapter yields no such Bride, or does it? After a bit of head scratching, I decided to employ the skills in my search for Waldo to find the promised image of the Bride of Jesus. Fortunately, I also decided to use some hermeneutical skills in my hunt for this beautiful creature.

John, in Revelation, was carried away in the Spirit to a great high mountain and he saw the holy city coming down out of heaven from God. The definitive feature of this city was the glory of God. John then observes that her radiance was like a rare jewel like Jasper. He then gives the stone a property that it does have on earth; namely that it was clear as crystal. The natural stone became supernatural due to the glory of God shining through it. Our natural lives become glorious as He shines through us. The Jasper in this verse is not literal but symbolic. John states that it was like Jasper. Meet the bride of Christ, not dressed in a wedding gown with her hair perfectly framed but instead displaying the glory of God giving the new Jerusalem it’s light.

When Moses came down from the mountain his face shown with glory. His time with God changed him and it took a while for that glory to wear off. When Jesus was transfigured before his disciples the Bible states that his appearance blazed with glory. John writes, “Beloved, now are we the sons of God, and it doth not yet appear what we shall be: but we know that, when he shall appear, we shall be like him; for we shall see him as he is.”

In the Sermon on the Mount, Jesus declared that we are the light of the world. In the book of Philippians Paul states that we shine forth as lights in this world. Peter instructs the church that we are lively stones build up as a spiritual house to offer up spiritual sacrifices acceptable to God through Jesus Christ. The Jasper-like stones in the new Jerusalem is the Bride of Christ. Brothers and sisters we are the light of the that city as God shines His glory through us in that glorious place, and we are none the less now. Oswald Chambers was right, “we are living in the age of the humiliation of the saints.” This world does not recognize us but soon they will see that the glory of God has been hidden in earthen vessels. Walk in that glory today.