I Love Marriage … It's Weddings I Can't Stand
Consider with me the marriage rite:

The union of husband and wife in heart, body, and mind is intended by God for the mutual companionship, help, and support that each person ought to receive from the other, both in prosperity and adversity. Marriage was also ordained so that man and woman may find delight in one another and thus avoid sexual immorality. Therefore all persons who marry shall live within their vows and so keep themselves undefiled as members of the body of Christ. Finally, God established marriage for the procreation of children to be brought up in the fear and instruction of the Lord and to offer Him their praise. So has God established the holy estate that Name and Name wish to enter. They desire our prayers as they begin their marriage in the Lord's name and with His blessing.

What's not to love in all of this? In marriage, God gives us a dear and true friend, help for the hard tasks, someone to laugh and cry with us, to support us, to love us. He gives a man and a woman each other's bodies and allows and encourages the joy and passion of sexual union. He often blesses the marriage with children. He gives a place where faith can be nurtured and practiced through faithful church participation, family devotions, and generally by living out vocation as husband and wife.

What do people do in response? Many come to the Church, asking to be married in it, even though they otherwise show no interest in God or His people. They want songs with no religious content or others that are filled with a vague (and often unbiblical) spirituality. Brides (or their mothers) often (usually?) treat what should be a solemn yet joyful religious service celebrating "the union of husband and wife in heart, body, and mind" into Queen for a Day, with the bedecked and bejeweled bride as star.

The men (including, often, the groom) are sort of along for the ride. They show up early for pictures and seem to be little more than pawns in the hands of a photographer or a "wedding coordinator." They end up with way too much time on their hands and all too often fill it by emptying beer and liquor into their bellies as they gather in clumps on the church parking lot.

Should a pastor suggest singing a hymn or two during the ceremony, he's often met with blank stares or flat denials. He regularly has to remind guests that a religious ceremony is not the place for moving about with flash cameras. He often needs to remind "gentlemen" to remove hats and prays that the bride or other "ladies" don't show up on wedding day exhibiting more skin than one sees on a summer day at the beach.

The "Unity Candle," a recent ecclesiastical innovation, is my personal nomination for latter-day "Abomination of Desolation." The flow of the service is interrupted; if no suitable place exists, they want to set it in the center of the altar where the presence or the memory of the Lord's body and blood should always take precedence. Not only is is liturgically inappropriate, it also drips wax and threatens to tip and teeter to the floor.

And don't get me started about people who want to change the paraments because the colors on the altar clash with the colors chosen by the bride. I've seen the "best" man pretend to have lost the rings as the party stands before God's altar, raising guffaws rather than amens. At one church (not one I pastored, thank God!) a mother objected to the "thing" sitting in the middle of the center aisle. The pastor firmly told her that the "thing" was the baptismal font and that — even if it weren't one with the concrete floor — one did not hide away the visible symbol of this rich Means of Grace.

Since the comment line is always open, I invite others to share wedding "horror" stories. However, as I said above, I also love marriage, and would enjoy hearing the stories of God-pleasing ceremonies and of years of Godly life as husband and wife. I promise that I'll share ours, too.

And now I must hasten off to shower and dress for today's ceremony.  ¶ 14:58 |