Wedding Day Characters: Are you a part of the wedding? Or Are you a cheering bystander?

A few weekends ago there was a lady in our estate ( estate makes where we stay sound fancy, maybe I should say our plot 10 ?? ) who was getting married. I did not know about the wedding until that beautiful Saturday morning. The caretaker was announcing to all and sundry that a bride would be picked from the compound and so we needed to go near their house and see her coming down the stairs. Guess who were her first converts? The children of course!

My little girl aged three was among the first converts and she hurriedly went near the said apartment block to wait for ‘Bibi Harusi’ (bride in Swahili). You should have seen the excitement on her face as she jumped and down:

“Mommy, mommy Bibi Harusi!!!”

So the long wait began. The usual African protocol of picking up the bride: Women singing and dancing, ululations renting the air, a few emissaries sent to the house to negotiate release of the bride. We waited and waited. When I say we I am talking about the cheering bystanders – read all the children in our compound, the helpers, the mothers, and immediate neighbors, and how can I forget the caretaker who convinced all of us to join the procession! ??

But there was also another very important group of people present, those who were part of the wedding. How to differentiate us? Our dressing. While those who were part of the wedding were well dressed head to toe, the compound peeps myself included were wearing our home clothes while some of us were in Saturday general cleaning regalia aka branded t-shirts ????
After an hour plus, by this time the women dancing and singing had gotten tired and bored, the best man came down quickly and called the entire entourage upstairs. A deal had been reached, the bride was on her way down. We were so excited, especially the children. They were jumping up and down shouting ‘Bibi Harusi’. The bride did finally come down and that’s when a separation happened.
We the compound residents were pushed; or rather we pushed ourselves to one side while all the smartly dressed folks gathered together. The bride was quickly ushered into her car and off they went!
End of the day’s highlight back to normal: As you were ???
The church is the Bride of Christ. Christ is her bridge groom, and soon and very soon He is coming back again to pick up His bride. On that day of the wedding feast of the Lamb what will you be? A part of the wedding feast as the Bride of Christ or a cheering bystander who never got ready to become a part of the wedding feast. I pray that you will be a part of the Bride because all the cheering curious bystanders who never took a step to join the Bride of Christ will not be left lingering and happily going back to their homes, no! Their place will be in the lake of fire.

Image Source: hitched.co.uk