A Match Made In Heaven Series

I’ve had the privilege of doing a lot of weddings over the years. I often tell couples to expect things to go wrong during wedding ceremonies. A couple stand out to me.

• During the most sacred part of one ceremony, I asked the couple named Ben and Jen to repeat their vows. When I turned to the bride, I accidently called her “Bennifer” (this was during the time Ben Affleck and Jennifer Lopez were referred to by that name). Everyone started laughing loudly, I turned bright red and became discombulated. It’s the only wedding I’ve done where the bride leaned forward with a big smile on her face and comforted me, “It’s OK, pastor. It’s OK.”

• Another memorable wedding began with the bride and her bridesmaids on a pontoon boat making their way across a lake. It was a very windy day and the lake had whitecaps. I’ll never forget her holding on to her veil as her hair was flying everywhere. She wasn’t smiling but I started laughing. When the boat finally reached the dock where the groom was, the bride stepped out of the boat…and fell into the lake. Unfortunately, I got the “church giggles” and received a glare from the wet wife-to-be.

As a pastor, it has been my joy for over 25 years to watch fretting fathers escort their eager daughters down the aisle. I’ve been the nervous father of the bride four times. Incidentally, I used to laugh when I watched the movie, “The Father of the Bride,” but I don’t find it very funny anymore.

I’ll never forget asking Pastor Tim for advice for our first wedding because I knew he officiated at the weddings of his children. My biggest concern was that I would cry like a baby walking my daughter down the aisle and then not be able to perform the ceremony. In his incredible wisdom, Pastor Tim said, “OK. Here’s what you do. Get up real early on the day of the wedding and come to church by yourself. Walk down the aisle as if you’re next to your daughter and get all your crying out.” I told him I would do that and then I asked, “Did that help you?” He smiled and said, “No. Not at all.”

A couple years ago, I sat down and wrote out a summary of biblical marriage. Because of other responsibilities, I don’t do weddings right now, but this is what I’ve stated at the beginning of weddings I have officiated:

Thank you for gathering for worship as we witness this man and woman make a covenant commitment in marriage before our Triune God. We live in a culture that dismisses marriage as an irrelevant relic of tradition. The spirit of our times has vigorously sought to dilute the sanctity of marriage through its condescending disregard, disrespect, and redefinition.

But the truth is, marriage has never found its worth or definition from any society or culture because marriage is the exclusive design of God’s personal genius. It has withstood the test of time and will continue to endure as a living memorial of God’s gracious provision for His creatures, remaining an institution created in His perfect wisdom and established by His infinite power.

Someone said it like this. Marriage is…

• Rooted in creation.

• Reiterated throughout Scripture.

• Repeated by Jesus himself.

• Representative of the love Jesus has for His church.

• Reflective of the gospel.

The Bible begins and ends with a wedding. In Genesis 2, God Himself presented the first woman to the first man and presided at the first wedding. As the second Adam, Jesus performed His first miracle at a wedding in John 2. Revelation 19:7-8 points to a future wedding filled with worship: “…For the marriage of the Lamb has come, and His bride has made herself ready; it was granted her to clothe herself with fine linen, bright and pure.”

Here’s a one-sentence summary of where we’re headed: Marriage is made in heaven, but it matures on earth.

Recently, in his Breakpoint Commentary, John Stonestreet shared some good news and some bad news. The good news is divorce is at its lowest rate in 50 years. The bad news is marriage is at its lowest point in 150 years. According to a Pew study, barely half of U.S. adults are married and nearly 4 in 10 believe marriage has become obsolete as an institution.

BTW, if you’re single, it doesn’t mean something is wrong or you are somehow “less than.” Please forgive us when we put pressure on you to get married, or make disparaging comments, or tease you, or just leave you out of things. Forgive us as a church for the times we’ve made you feel second class or unimportant. That’s wrong. And we must stop. We must do a better job helping you live out your singleness with single-minded devotion to the glory of God.