Recently, I flew
to Hayward, Calif. (in the Bay Area) to perform a wedding ceremony for a
younger Christian couple. These delightful individuals met and fell in love
while enrolled at Freed-Hardeman University. They also both attended Bethel
Springs church of Christ, where I preach on a regular basis. It has been a joy
to see their relationship develop and blossom over the past year.
While I was in
California to officiate the wedding, I had some downtime to meditate on
marriage and reflect upon the significance of wedding ceremonies in general. In
this column, it is my desire to share these thoughts with you. I hope my personal
musings are helpful in some way.
Weddings are supposed
to be joyous and memorable occasions. They are the long-awaited fulfillment and
climactic culmination of many prayers, plans, and oft-difficult and painful personal
journeys.
Jesus said, in
Matthew 19:4-6, “Have you not read that he who created them from the beginning
made them male and female, and said, ‘Therefore a man shall leave his father
and his mother and hold fast to his wife, and the two shall become one flesh’?
So they are no longer two but one flesh. What therefore God has joined
together, let not man separate.”
Marriage
ceremonies serve as a special celebration of life itself, of the experience of romantic
love. They are a ritual or spiritual rite of passage that recognize and honor familial
relationships, meaningful friendships, spiritual connection, religious beliefs
and values, and mark the beginning of something brand new—something beautiful
and sacred.
At marriage
ceremonies, the couple’s families-of-origin and extended family members, dearest
friends and colleagues, and communities of faith come together in a unique way,
for a special (inimitable) and distinctive purpose. But, most of all, God the Father,
Son, and Holy Spirit are present and should be honored as both guest and host,
audience and participant. You see: marriage would not be possible without God’s
matchless love that he has poured out upon humanity.
Marriage is the
one human bond and relationship that most closely reflects God’s own
interpersonal connection within the intimate and interdependent relationship of
the Trinity—the Godhead Three. In turn, it symbolizes the relationship between
Christ and his holy Bride, the Church (Ephesians 5:22-33).
Wedding
ceremonies are an unsurpassed avenue—a sacrament if you will—for individuals to
share openly together in God’s grace and goodness. They are also an opportunity
for those who are already married to reflect upon their own unions, engage in
self and couple-evaluation, and recommit themselves to upholding their binding,
covenantal vows as they think back to their own wedding day.
For those who are
widowed, they can remember the good times and priceless moments they spent with
their spouse during the years God gave them together. For those who are still single,
they can dream of a momentous day in the future when they will meet, fall in
love, get engaged, and ultimately become joined with their future spouse in
holy matrimony.
We are reminded
by means of wedding ceremonies of the inestimable value of genuine and lasting
commitment, the preciousness of relationships, and the sublime beauty of love
itself. We are reminded of God’s wonderful gifts, his divine expectations for marriage
partners, about the critical importance of faith and fidelity, generosity and
kindness, selflessness and sacrifice, truth and honesty, caring and sharing, hoping
and dreaming, helping and healing, comforting and caressing, loving and
learning, growing and maturing, spirituality and service.
In a surrounding
secular culture that is plagued by marital conflict and infidelity, chronic promise-breaking,
self-centeredness, devastating divorce and the destabilizing and dismantling of
the home and family, Christian marriages needs to stick out. They must be
different from marriages in the world.
Christian marriages ought to demonstrate God’s abiding
and unshakeable love. They must shine brightly as a safe lighthouse of
spiritual hope, holiness, refuge and peace in a dark, depressing, sinful world.
