Pages of Joy // John Greco

Rose petals were strewn along the path from her foyer to her living room, and the end of the trail was lit with dozens of candles. But her eyes were drawn to the center of the room, where a ball of mistletoe was suspended from the ceiling with red ribbon. Taking Laurin by the hand, I guided her down the rosy walkway and retrieved a small box dangling from the kissing ball. Inside was a diamond ring, an expensive but relatively small token of the commitment I was about to make. I got down on one knee and told Laurin how much I loved her heart. I told her I didn’t want to spend another Christmas apart from her for the rest of my life. And then I asked her to marry me.

That was Christmas Eve in 2012. Now that kissing ball hangs from the ceiling in our living room each year during the holidays as a reminder of our Christmas engagement. But as it turns out, Christmas itself is already an engagement reminder. It’s when Jesus made an engagement promise of His own.

In ancient Jewish culture, the initial commitment of marriage had two stages, beginning with betrothal and ending with consummation and celebration. Although today we tend to think of the engagement period as bearing less commitment than the wedding day, betrothal in first-century Israel was as binding as marriage. (That’s why, for example, Joseph planned to divorce Mary when he thought she had been unfaithful. Because they were already considered legally married, it would not have been enough to simply call off the wedding; see Matthew 1:19.)

Betrothal was serious business and was not to be taken lightly. It began when a man visited the father of his potential bride and asked for permission to marry his daughter. If the father gave his consent, the two signed a contract and the bridegroom paid an agreed-upon price for his bride. At this point, the marriage officially began, although the couple would not live together as husband and wife or consummate the marriage physically for some time.

Once the bride and groom were betrothed, they started preparing for life together. The bride made herself ready for the day of her beloved’s return, while the groom built a place for them to live, usually as an addition onto his father’s home. This preparation time could last a year or more, after which the groom would once again visit the father of the bride’s home—this time with friends and witnesses in tow. The marriage was then consummated in a special room while the bridesmaids, the best man, and witnesses all waited outside. Afterward, this collected group of friends returned to the home of the groom’s father for a weeklong celebration.

At Christmas, Jesus began His earthly life, His visit to the home of His bride. The purpose of His visit was to pay the necessary price—His own blood, poured out on the cross. In giving instructions about marriage, Paul says this about Jesus’s sacrifice:

Husbands, love your wives, as Christ loved the church and gave himself up for her, that he might sanctify her, having cleansed her by the washing of water with the word, so that he might present the church to himself in splendor, without spot or wrinkle or any such thing, that she might be holy and without blemish. (Ephesians 5:25–27)

The purpose for the cross was that Jesus might present the church to himself on the day of the heavenly wedding feast in the age to come. Death was the price Jesus paid in order to marry His bride. And by paying that price, Jesus was making a promise to come back for her.

After the covenant was ratified and payment made, like any honorable bridegroom, Jesus went to prepare a place for His bride in His Father’s house. As He told His disciples, “In my Father’s house are many rooms. If it were not so, would I have told you that I go to prepare a place for you?” (John 14:2). And because of all that Jesus did, that’s where we find ourselves in the grandest of all wedding stories—waiting for Christ’s return, so we can be with Him forever and the celebration can begin.

Without Christmas, there would be no Good Friday. Without Good Friday, there would be no Easter. And without Easter, there would be no looking forward to the Lord’s second coming. At Christmas, Jesus set the future in motion. And each year, we have a reminder of Jesus’s visit, a reminder of the payment He made on the cross, and a reminder of His promise to return.

This post originally appeared in my book The Promise of Christmas.