As a pastor I have the privilege of performing all kinds
of weddings for all kinds of people in all kinds of situations. This afternoon Heather and I sat at a
reception table watching all the first dances, and a few things began to dawn
on me. A wedding – the formal act of a man and woman dedicating themselves to
each other – in whatever form it happens has been common among humans across
all cultures since the dawn of, well, humanity. It brings families from every
possible background together in the same room as they celebrate the union of
two lives.
Weddings build new things while extending the reach of
the oldest things. A new family is made while the deep roots of old families
push life into new limbs.
Weddings represent, maybe more often than we know, the
hope of reclamation. Where the past has been imperfect, maybe deeply imperfect,
there is the real chance of something healthy and stable being built. If the
new home continues the dysfunction of the old ones, hope waits one more
generation. Where the new home is dedicated to ways that build souls and love
God, the cycle of pain can be broken.
Weddings are inescapably between a man and a woman. The
two getting married came from the union of two other sets of men and women and
they will likely build their family in the way their natures determine. Every
other option available to us is either a technological marvel or a societal
novelty, but they all are thin shadows of how humans have built families for millennia.
None of them replace the nature God has given us all.
Research and, more importantly, theology and history are
on the side of men and women getting married and building families. Children
need moms and dads. Men need women and
women need men. Kids thrive with grandparents. Families can be beautiful for
their sheer expanse and life shaping in their extended intimacy.
Those who seek to expand and change the definition of
marriage are in the smallest minority possible.
They not only find themselves in the minority now, they find themselves
swimming against the tide of all human experience. All their ancestors are
against them. Every example against man and woman marriage is the epitome of
the anecdote – it only proves how universal the rule is.
And most importantly weddings are how God shows his
absolute joy in humanity. He began the institution. Jesus made really good wine
at one. It predates every other human organization and is thus more important
than them all. It is how God encourages us to make more of us, and in this he
delights. God loves that new human smell.
God created us to not only be together, but to be
together for the expanse of our earthly lives. In that commitment we find
stability, hope, and joy. Sexual promiscuity is soul soiling. One of the great
testimonies one human can leave to another is life-long commitment to their
spouse through all kinds of thick and thin.
And in them God is able to show how his love for us
works. There is emotion, heart-felt
connection and even romance. But over
the long run there is love. This love is truly what love is. You can tell who
and what you love by what you have committed yourself to over the long-haul. You can tell by your sacrifices. You can tell
by why you endure what you endure. This is often myself, but it can be, and
ought to be, the one you married. And when there is this kind of love we begin
to glimpse the love God has for people he created. People he adores and put his
image in. People he sent his Son to live among and die for. Broken people he
reaches out to over and over.
Weddings bear the promise of God’s love among us.
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