Summer weddings are getting their start today… at least in my circle of friends. Today marks the start of two marriages and celebrates the anniversary of another. Next Saturday marks the beginning of another new marriage. With all this in mind, The Church’s One Foundation has playing in my mind. Marriage is a covenant of faithfulness that reflects the great mystery of Christ’s love for the Church and the Church’s response to her Savior. So a wedding between two believers is doubly happy. It is a celebration of the love two individuals for each other that is held together by and points to the greater love of the Almighty God for all believers.
Here is an arrangement with two verses of the hymn and one verse of Fairest Lord Jesus that I included at the end.
The Church’s One Foundation_Fairest Lord Jesus
V1.
The Church’s one foundation
is Jesus Christ her Lord,
She is His new creation
By water and the Word.
From heaven He came and sought her
To be His holy bride;
With His own blood He bought her,
And for her life He died.
V.2
Elect from every nation,
Yet one over all the earth;
Her charter of salvation,
One Lord, one faith, one birth;
One holy Name she blesses,
Partakes one holy food,
And to one hope she presses,
With every grace endued.
V3.
Though with a scornful wonder
Men see her sore oppressed,
By schisms rent asunder,
By heresies distressed,
Yet saints their watch are keeping;
Their cry goes up, “How long?”
And soon the night of weeping
Shall be the morn of song.
V4.
The church shall never perish,
Her dear Lord to defend
To guide, sustain and cherish,
Is with her to the end
THough there be those that hate her,
And false sons in her pale
Against a foe or traitor,
She ever shall prevail.
V5.
Mid toil and tribulation,
And tumult of her war,
She waits the consummation
Of peace forevermore;
‘Til with the vision glorious,
Her longing eyes are blessed,
And the great Church victorious
Shall be the Church at rest.
V.6
Yet she on earth hath union
With God the Three in One,
And mystic sweet communion
With those whose rest is won.
O Happy ones and holy!
Lord, give us grace that we
Like them, the meek and lowly,
On high may dwell with Thee.
Wives, submit to your own husbands, as to the Lord. For the husband is the head of the wife even as Christ is the head of the church, his body, and is himself its Savior. Now as the church submits to Christ, so also wives should submit in everything to their husbands. 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. In the same way husbands should love their wives as their own bodies. He who loves his wife loves himself. For no one ever hated his own flesh, but nourishes and cherishes it, just as Christ does the church, because we are members of his body. “Therefore a man shall leave his father and mother and hold fast to his wife, and the two shall become one flesh.” This mystery is profound, and I am saying that it refers to Christ and the church. Ephesians 5:22-32
thoughts and songs 