What's in a church wedding?

With June upon us, we are well into the church wedding season. When we are asked to attend a church wedding, the invitation generally comes to us in one of three forms. These variations are like old-fashioned railway tickets! First class is when we are invited to attend the wedding ceremony, the reception meal and the ‘do’ in the evening. Second class is when we are welcomed to the wedding ceremony and the evening party. Third class is when more casual acquaintances are invited to attend the church service, should they feel inclined, but no RSVP is necessary.

I want to challenge such a way of thinking. To be invited to attend a church wedding ceremony is a great privilege. When we are ushered to our seat in the church, we are not there simply as an impartial observer, nor an interested spectator and certainly not to justify our place at the reception meal. No, we are there as a participant. We are present to bear witness to the life-long covenant being entered into between a man and a woman by means of verbal promises. We are also witnesses to the fact that these promises have been declared not only publicly, but also in the presence of God. Lastly, we are there to worship God for who he is, to praise and thank him for the institution of marriage and to ask for his blessing upon the couple’s life together.

I imagine that some people attending church weddings cannot help asking themselves, ‘In today’s culture, is the content of the Christian church wedding ceremony realistic?’ After all, a recent report suggests that of children being born today 50% will have experienced family breakdown by the time they are 16 years old.

The Christian wedding ceremony is formulated in such a way as to assume that there will be three in the marriage, husband, wife and God himself . Marriage is God’s idea. I am convinced that he wants to help us in our marriages. In the Bible, God enters into covenant relationship (we may legitimately read that term as marriage-like relationship) with his people. ‘I will be your God and you will be my people’ he says. The Christian gospel is that Jesus is issuing wedding invitations, calling us to become one of God’s own people, and he marks it RSVP. This should not seem foreign to us as much of it is referred to in the Christian marriage service.

Using the illustration of wedding and marriage, Jesus is urging us to go the whole hog and get hitched to God (Matthew 11v28). If we do, he then makes available to us his power to live in a way that pleases God, which includes help in fulfilling our own marriage vows.

#wedding