Wedding days - woman, the glory of man

If you have even passing familiarity with UK "famous person" news,
you'll know that today is the wedding day of Pippa Middleton, the sister
of the Duchess of Cambridge.

All the coverage and the photos testify that we all still, underneath
the pretence, acknowledge the Bible truth: "woman is the glory of man"
(1 Cor 11.7). It's there throughout the news stories, the pictures, the
ceremonies that will take place.

Have you not seen it? The men will be dressed in functional suits,
because they are men, and that won't be much discussed. Their glory is
not one displayed outwardly on occasions like this. But... on the day...
what are the ladies wearing? Their hats, their dresses, their styles -
what will they be? The bridesmaids... and at the centre, the beautiful
bride. All eyes are upon her!

I had a minor epiphany some years ago when I realised that whilst men
were fascinated by female beauty.... this was not a precisely
symmetrical thing. So were women. Men desire female beauty; and females
desire to be beautiful. To be sure, male beauty exists and attention is
paid to it - but when put on the scales, the other sides sinks
immediately. There is a directionality. It's so pervasive that it will
take you years of brainwashing before you can make yourself believe that
this is a tragic artefact of our invisible lizard overlords. Sorry, I
mean the evil patriarchy; I'm getting my conspiracies mixed up. If
you've not had that nonsensical indoctrination, then on the contrary,
you'll see that it's so pervasive that it can only be seen as a simple
fact of creation. It is what the Bible says it is - part of nature. No
matter what people claim to believe, they act otherwise, because they
know otherwise. By "part of nature" I don't mean it's some weird Mother
Earth thing. I mean it's how God intentionally designed the world. It's
an echo of the Great Story - the hero comes from heaven to claim and
enjoy his glorious bride, the church. His glory is not in his preening
himself. His glory is in that he gives his blood to win his beautiful
bride - his glory is messy, dirty, sweaty. Her glory does not shine like
that. Her glory shines out visibly in her desirability to him - in the
Great Story, this is by his powerful grace, as the beauty of a
submissive and pure church which willingly gives itself to him.

Don't agree? Go again and look at all the coverage. Everybody knows it
really, at the tacit/intuitive level. Woman is the glory of man. His
glory will be to sweat and bleed for her from this day forth. Her glory
will be that she is glorious, and becomes more and more glorious under
his loving care. That's part of why it's his responsibility to honour
her, to protect her and in marriage to use his God-given authority to
lead her so that on the last day, the great Wedding Feast of the Lamb,
they might both shine together as part of the bride of Christ.