Just about everybody ought to get married, at least once. There’s nothing quite like it in all the world.
Everybody ought to have the experience of learning the difference between fantasy and reality. That’s what happens when you get married.
Everything up to marriage is fantasy. It’s romance, or at least it’s supposed to be. It’s an unreal world of primping and posing, trying to impress that significant other. Everything prior to marriage is what we used to call courtship. I don’t guess that name is used anymore; it probably went out with the front porch swing! But, whatever you call it, before marriage it’s a fantasy game, it’s trying to be something more than you are. It’s trying to translate those special feelings for that certain someone into actions to impress.
And that, good friends, is a complete fantasy, which is about to be broken up by that harsh reality we call marriage. Marriage is not about romance. Marriage is about paying the bills. Marriage is not about fantasy; marriage is about keeping the house sort of clean and putting food on the table and going to work every morning. Marriage is not about layers of makeup and magnificently coifed hair and spiffy clothes. Marriage is about babies, diapers, school, and tuition. The tough, grueling labor of making a relationship work.
And that’s true, I believe, even if in this age a lot of folks have decided that they can live together without benefit of marriage. It’s true, even of cohabiting couples, because I think I could show you, if I had to, that until couples make a concrete covenanted commitment, they are still living in a make-believe world, from which either of them can retreat at any time. And that’s unreal.
So marriage, I am saying, is tough, hard-boiled, and realistic. But wouldn’t you like more? Wouldn’t you like a touch of romance again? Like the old wife, in "Fiddler on the Roof", who was asked, "Do you love me?" And she replied, "For thirty six years I’ve washed your clothes, fed your face, raised your children, and listened to your stories. And you want to know if I love you? If that’s not love, what is?" Yes. All right. We agree. But don’t we also feel a little, too, of what her husband felt? Doesn’t this ring true too? "But do you love me? Do you LOVE me?" Something down inside that wants a hint of the old romance? Wouldn’t you just like to be swept off your feet and carried away from all that reality business?
In the middle of life’s everydayness, wouldn’t most of us want to have a fresh encounter with something exciting? Wouldn’t most of us, wouldn’t you, like to have the old cobwebs blown away and some relationship refreshed? I would. I would.
Maybe that’s why Jesus chose the picture of the bridegroom to tell us a little about the excitement of a fresh encounter. When the bridegroom comes, you just can’t have business as usual. When the bridegroom comes, you celebrate. You rejoice. You get tensed up and excited. When the bridegroom comes, there will be a fresh encounter.
Let me illustrate. I know all about bridegrooms. It is not only that I was one once, a long time ago. It is also that I have herded many a nervous bridegroom along toward his execution, or, I mean, his celebration. They stand back here in this little cubbyhole just outside this door, and they are nervous. Their knees knock, their palms go sweaty, they worry about their lines, they forget who has the rings, they wonder how they look. All kinds of things happen. And, without being too crude about it, I will just say that he is an architectural genius, whoever put next to the spot where the bridegroom waits, the men’s room!
But then comes the moment of transformation. Then comes the encounter moment. The music sounds, we walk out right about here and stand. The music continues; two clumsy ushers build the tension up real high because they cannot get the aisle cloth unrolled. Then bridesmaids, ring bearer, flower girls … and over here somebody is sweating buckets. Ah! But wait. The doors close; there is the rustle made by yards and yards of white cloth. And when the doors open there is a vision of sheer loveliness, absolute fantasy, his heart’s desire. Never, in the whole history of humanity, was there a lovelier bride. Never, never, in the annals of time, was there a sweeter young woman. And never, never, never again, he hopes, will he have to go through this again! But in that moment, he celebrates! In that moment, no matter how long and how well they have known each other, he is having a fresh encounter! This is new, different! Yes, this is the same woman he has been seeing for a long time. Yes, he knows her moods and her thoughts. But this, this is a fresh encounter. This is a memory to carry him a long, long time! A fresh encounter.
Men and women, I hope that in you is beginning a hunger for a fresh encounter with the Living God. I hope you are beginning to thirst after Him, as the psalmist did. No matter how sweet your relationship, there are times when you want to hear Him tell you that He loves you. No matter how well you know the Lord, there are times when you want to see Him in a new light. No matter how long you have walked with the Lord, there are times when you want to stand and wait and watch him come toward you as a bride or a bridegroom adorned for the wedding, and experience the joy, the delight of a fresh encounter.
I
Oh, there are some of us who say we don’t want that. There are some of us who modestly claim that we don’t need a new and different experience with God. The old one will do, we say. "No need to go to a lot of trouble; the Lord and I are doing all right just as we are."
But I know all about that one too. I have planned, or maybe non-planned, lots of weddings where somebody has said, "We just want this to be simple. We don’t want all the fuss and the frolic." I’ve been through those weddings where somebody said, “We’ve done this before, and we’re not kids anymore. So how about if we just have a quiet ceremony with a few family members and friends?" And I will agree to that, knowing that something else will soon take over.
The few family members and friends become a roomful. Pastor, maybe we’d better use the parlor instead of just your office. Then the roomful becomes a houseful; well, Pastor, I guess it wouldn’t hurt to go to the sanctuary, just stand in front of the altar. But no processional, no fanfare, no big deal.
I leave it to your imagination to figure out what actually happens. And it should! It should! Because everyone wants to celebrate when there is a genuinely fresh encounter. Everyone wants to rejoice when the old and the familiar is refreshed. Don’t deny it. Don’t hold yourself back from what God wants to give you, a fresh encounter.
II
Maybe it is that you’ve been a Christian a long time. Maybe you cannot even remember when you didn’t go to church. One of our members says she was carted off to church in a basket when she was two weeks old and hasn’t been able to break the habit yet! But you think you’ve seen it all, heard it all, done it all, and there is nothing new waiting for you.
Don’t be too sure. Don’t be so certain. Above all, don’t be so protective, so defensive, so negative. "The wedding guests cannot mourn as long as the bridegroom is with them." "No one puts new wine into old wineskins." God just may be about to do something fresh. You may be about to have a fresh encounter with God, something like and yet unlike anything you’ve ever had before. Don’t put boundaries on it. Don’t try to define it, to limit it. Don’t pour it into old wineskins. Let it be a fresh encounter.
III
Or, again, maybe you haven’t been a Christian a long time. Maybe you have only just started your Christian walk. Just baptized a few months ago, or not even baptized yet. You can remember the excitement and the joy when first you met the Lord. You can remember the thrill of the waters of baptism, when it just felt as if you were embraced completely in the spirit of God. It was truly a wonderful time.
But now things have settled down a bit. Now, new Christian though you are, it has become kind of ordinary. Like a marriage, you still have to pay the bills and you still have to go to work, and you still have to contend with that fellow who won’t leave you alone … and it’s getting tiring. It’s getting stale. Is that all there is? Is this it? You need a fresh encounter; the one who claimed you just a little while ago has something more for you. Something refreshing. A booster shot, if you like. No, what you’ve felt is not all there is. There is more. There is the excitement of growth; there is the passion of service; there is the joy of learning something new. There is a fresh encounter, for you, new Christian.
IV
Or, still further, maybe it is you aren’t exactly a Christian at all. You’ve never professed Jesus Christ as Lord, at least not formally. You’ve kept your distance. And yet you keep coming to church, you keep listening, you keep your antennas out, tingling with hope that there will be something there for you. You’ve kept your distance, though. You’ve never really let it happen. You are not the bridegroom; you are always the groomsman, standing to the side. You’re never the bride; you are always the bridesmaid, all dressed up and looking fine, but still without fulfillment.
Then for you, too, there is a fresh encounter. The Lord Jesus has been waiting with arms outstretched a long time, and you’ve forgotten to notice. He’s been there so long, you scarcely see Him any more. He is for you like the kid next door that you grew up with and never thought of as a romantic possibility. Who marries the girl next door? She’s just a scrawny brat who always did better than you in school! Who marries the fellow across the street? He’s just some gangly kid who makes too much noise! Until you wake up and find out that those who have been around all the time are more than we thought they were; until we have a fresh encounter with them.
And some of you who have been dancing around the Christian faith a long time, dancing around this church a long time; wake up and smell the coffee! Or, to keep from changing the image, wake up and smell the wine! New wine, new wineskins! Today, you can have a fresh encounter with the one who has been waiting for you all the while. And you didn’t even notice.
The moment when the bridegroom is there and they celebrate. The new wine that won’t be contained in old wineskins. A refreshing encounter with the living God.
I want that. I want that for me and for you. I want that. Wake up and smell ... the bread and the wine. The bridegroom comes! Now!
