[Onebrother] Wedding Dress

[David Rapp]

Good thoughts on Wedding Dress.  I think they are on the mark.

I actually think the song has a little ambiguity partly stemming from the
way two sentences in the chorus are understood.

The actual printed lyrics read:
"I am a whore I do confess
BUT I put you on just like a wedding dress . . .

I'm a prodigal with no way home
BUT I put you on just like a ring of gold and I run home to you . . ."

However, none of the recorded versions include the two BUTs.

With the BUTs it could be understood as confessing that we are the whore
running from our husband and the prodigal running from our Father, BUT we
are received back by the Bridegroom who gives us a wedding gown of HIs
righteousness and by the Father who gives us the ring designating full
status in the family.

Without the BUTs it reads more like our putting on a wedding dress and the
ring are part of our insincere and inadequate responses to God.

I really like the imagery of the first interpretation, but I don't think
that is the intended meaning of the artist.

I think what Derek Webb is focusing on is the way that we buy the lies that
are often communicated by some parts of the church - that what God really
wants is for us to have lots of material blessings.  We try in so many ways
to use God to get the comfort we desire from Him while still avoiding Him.
 Jesus becomes our meal ticket.

This approach and attitude really serves to undermine the gospel, to
minimize sin and the lavishness of the grace that can receive wayward
sinners like us back.  It's a less offensive version of the
gospel/Christianity that really doesn't need the cross.

Derek Webb actually explains what the song is about in a recorded
introduction to the song.

You can find it on iTunes by searching Derek Webb Wedding Dress.  It's
called "Introduction to Wedding Dress" on the album "The House Show".

David

On Wed, Apr 13, 2011 at 12:27 PM, Jolene Bean Lijewski <
beanski at sbcglobal.net> wrote:

> That is kind of what I was thinking - like we get all pretty and put him on
> and we feel great but we kind of put him on and take him off - but I still
> don't get parts of that song.  Maybe the songwriter has weighed in on utube
> or something.
> I am wondering about this Sunday...what's the plan?  Are we bringing stuff
> to the party?  Where is it?  I want to volunteer to bring dessert...
> Jolene
>
> --- On *Tue, 4/12/11, Inez Cobb <icobb at swmail.sw.org>* wrote:
>
>
> From: Inez Cobb <icobb at swmail.sw.org>
> Subject: [Onebrother] Wedding Dress
> To: onebrother at midnighthour.org
> Date: Tuesday, April 12, 2011, 8:33 AM
>
>
> Just a little reflection on our group discussing. I think maybe the wedding
> dress symbolizes how we feel when we put on Christ. We see ourselves all
> pure now. We are "Christians" But it does not take long for the world to
> come in and woo us back. Buy us back into the sins we thought we had left
> behind.
>
>
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-- 
Rev. David Rapp

Redeemer Presbyterian Church
Temple, TX

david at redeemerprestemple.org
254-760-4246

www.redeemerprestemple.org
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