This week’s Torah Portion is titled, Chayei Sarah, Life of Sarah (Gen 23:1 - 25:18).

I was personally touched by a paragraph in the comments on this portion by Boaz and Rena Dryer. They wrote, “The most important part of this portion deals with finding a wife for Yitzchak. This is very significant to understand as we find ourselves as the bride of Messiah. We need to understand the changes and conditions required of us enable to be worthy of the groom.”

At the same time, I was touched by some personal email comments from my friend, Larry Schmidt, who is one of the moderators on Messianic Israel Talk. (It is a great discussion group. Check it out at: www.yahoo.com/group/Messianic_Israel_Talk/.)

These things ministered to me because I am presently finishing an update of my feast book. The first edition is going out of print soon and I have expanded it in order to make new points concerning the feasts and prophetic interpretations about them.

Larry is one of my friends who is reviewing the manuscript, and we had been emailing about some things I had written about “the Bride.” Larry clearly “got my point” and even began to feed insights back to me. In our encouraging exchange, we were both growing in our understanding of mother Sarah and mother Jerusalem.

Paul said, “I betrothed you to one husband, so that to Messiah I might present you as a pure virgin” (2 Cor 11:2). Thus, we rightly see ourselves as the Bride of Messiah.

However, as the commentator Paul Harvey says, “Now for the rest of the story...”

In the Book of Revelation an angel said to John, “Come here, I will show you the bride, the wife of the Lamb.” John then said, “[He] showed me the holy city, Jerusalem, coming down out of heaven.... made ready as a bride adorned for her husband.”

The same angel also said, “Blessed are those who are invited to the marriage supper of the Lamb.” Yeshua is that Lamb, and we are blessed if we are invited to His marriage supper. However, if we leave “the wife of the Lamb” out of our understanding of “who is the Bride,” our understanding is, in my opinion, incomplete (John 1:29; Rev 19:9; 21:2,9-10).

Concerning Jerusalem, Paul says “Jerusalem above... is our mother” (Gal 4:26).

Paul may have based this understanding on Isaiah’s prophetic word: “For Zion’s sake I will not keep silent, and for Jerusalem’s sake I will not keep quiet, until her righteousness goes forth like brightness, and her salvation like a torch that is burning. The nations will see your righteousness, and all kings your glory; and you will be called by a new name which the mouth of the LORD will designate. You will also be a crown of beauty in the hand of the LORD, and a royal diadem in the hand of your God. It will no longer be said to you, ‘Forsaken,’ nor to your land will it any longer be said, ‘Desolate,’ but you will be called, ‘My delight is in her,’ and your land, ‘Married,’ for the LORD delights in you, and to Him your land will be married. For as a young man marries a virgin, so your sons will marry you; and as the bridegroom rejoices over the bride, so your God will rejoice over you” (Isa 62:1-5).

We learn truths when we see ourselves as Messiah’s Bride. However, as sons of Zion, one day we will marry our Heavenly City. We will go into her and forevermore be one with her. Thus, we also need to see ourselves as the Body of Messiah, and we need to see that He is the Bridegroom. We need to see this because bridegrooms are protective, and we are called to protect Jerusalem. Isaiah says, “On your walls, O Jerusalem, I have appointed watchmen; all day and all night they will never keep silent. You who remind the LORD, take no rest for yourselves; and give Him no rest until He establishes and makes Jerusalem a praise in the earth” (Isa 62:6-7).

We are those watchmen! If we see ourselves only as a Bride at rest, we become passive and look to be rescued. However, Ephraim was especially called to be a watchman on Zion’s walls. We are to care for, watch over, and contend with, earthly Jerusalem and her children. We are to call them up higher, to Eternal Zion. We are to encourage earthly Jerusalem to be one with the Zion that will put us on like jewels and bind us on as a bride (Isa 44:22; 51:11; 49:14-20; 50:1; Ezek 16:8; Hos 1:2; 2:2).

The problem is, Believers tend to look for a Heavenly Jerusalem, and then all but forget about earthly Jerusalem. Or they look to earthly Jerusalem and forget about New Jerusalem.

The truth is that both are important. The truth is that they need to become one and the same...

This brings me to the essence of Larry’s note to me. In summing up what I had written, Larry wrote:
“‘New’ Jerusalem is a restored, ‘Old’ Jerusalem, the place YHVH chose for His name to dwell. That makes Revelation 21:3 even more clear. It speaks of God dwelling with man right after describing the New Jerusalem as a bride.... [We] refer to the... ‘renewed covenant,’ ...[and]... New Jerusalem... is “renewed.” It is a redeemed city, just like Israel is a renewed and redeemed people. In the same way that we are looking for the restoration of both houses of Israel, this will be the ‘re-new-ed,’ redeemed and restored Jerusalem, the city where the one king and shepherd of Ezekiel 37 reigns over the one kingdom.”

Larry’s note made me want to jump up and down and dance and sing and shout, “Yes! Jerusalem also is to be renewed!”

In another email, he wrote, “Sarah is like mother Jerusalem.... When Isaac received his bride, he took her into his mother’s tent. And Yeshua will take [His bride] into the ‘mother tent’ that is the New Jerusalem.”

This note also made me want to jump up and down and dance and sing and shout!

Isaiah said, “Look to Abraham your father and to Sarah who gave birth to you in pain.”

The prophet then followed this statement with, “Indeed, the LORD will comfort Zion; He will comfort all her waste places. And her wilderness He will make like Eden, and her desert like the garden of the LORD; Joy and gladness will be found in her, Thanksgiving and sound of a melody.” After Isaiah gave this revelation, the Father said, “Pay attention to Me, O My people, And give ear to Me, O My nation...” (Isa 51:2-4).

Nation of Israel, we need to pay attention to these truths. We need to look to mother Sarah, and we need to know that our God is going to comfort us – in mother Jerusalem (Isa 51:3; 66:13; Jer 31:13).

Paul wrote, “You brethren, like Isaac, are children of promise” (Gal 4:28).

We are, like Isaac, children of the promise!

As Boaz and Rina wrote, the most important part of this week’s portion deals with “finding a wife for Yitzchak.”

We have found her! She is New Jerusalem!

To be worthy of our Groom, we need to understand these things.

We need to care about Jerusalem’s renewal too!

Apart from her, we only have half of the story.

As we study this week’s portion, let us mediate on these things.

Shabbat Shalom,
Batya