It’s the stuff of fairytales. May 19, Henry Charles Albert David Mountbatten-Windsor will wed Rachel Meghan Markle. Prince Harry and Meghan, that is. The royal prince and the American actress.
Of course, the only way you would not know that is if you have been asleep for the last two months. Media have been rife with fluffy exposés masked as news documentaries recounting the life of Meghan Markle and how she ascended to the glory of royalty. We just love this stuff, and the media knows it.
But how can we not love it? Royal weddings pull at the heart and garner universal fascination, especially when royalty weds regular folks. We can’t help but sigh just a bit when royalty reaches down to lift up a commoner, and to stand at the altar to vow devotion and love to someone unworthy. It’s a fantasy becoming reality.
And it will be a grand and majestic thing, lavish and expensive. Harry and Meghan’s wedding will cost an estimated $2.7 million, with an additional $40 million spent on security.
So why, do you suppose, does this resonate with us so much? Why do we have such an effusive fascination with the whole idea of a regular person, unworthy and undeserving, becoming royalty? Why is it that we desire, deep within, that the girl be swept from her common life by the dashing and courageous prince?
Because, the fact is, this fantasy is linked to a reality threaded through the history of human nature. It is our heritage, and it is our hope.
Among the most powerful images the Bible uses to help us grasp God’s plan of redemption is that of bride and groom. But in the Bible, it’s not just any wedding. It’s a royal wedding.
Adam and Eve were granted the privilege to be stewards of creation. Planted in God’s garden, the Creator revealed to these two, as a Father would to His children, that they were the very apex of His best work, and they were destined to manage His creation, to be representatives of His authority and rulers of His realm (Ps. 103:19).
And then it all fell apart.
The stewards disobeyed the King. And along with their disobedience, the kingdom collapsed into sin and became a place of suffering, trial, and violence. And the first couple were banished from His royal presence (Gen. 3:24).
But the King of all creation had a plan to restore his unworthy and undeserving children to their rightful place of prominence. He loved them too much not to. So He called upon His Son, the Prince of all creation, to remove His own crown for a time, to leave the glorious realm of His Father, and come to the earth that together they created. But this time things would be different. The stewards could not mess it up.
Because now, rather than give them oversight of the kingdom, the kingdom was in the Person of the Son, and to return to the kingdom the people simply had to trust in the Son and to accept His gift of life (Mark 1:15; Luke 17:21; John 3:3-5).
Many did not recognize the Prince because He had left His crown and His robes with His Father. He dressed like the stewards and even looked like the stewards. But those who paid attention recognized Him. He was their Prince.
He loved them. He had come for them. And they believed (John 1:12-13).
Unworthy. Underserving. And yet welcomed into the royal family, the Father’s children, the Son’s joint-heirs (Rom. 8:17). Fallen out of the royal lineage by the bloodline of the first couple but raised back to royalty by the shed blood of the King of all creation.
And for all who trust the Son as Savior and Redeemer a feast is waiting, a wedding reception that makes Harry and Meghan’s reception look like a poor man’s picnic, a celebration when the Bride of Christ will finally celebrate her renewed vows at the altar of the King (Rev. 19:6-9).
Harry and Meghan’s wedding is just a shadowy reflection of our return to the kingdom in Christ.
Root for Meghan. But celebrate Christ, who came and brought you back to His kingdom.
It is your heritage and it is your hope. Your Prince has come.