Wedding Words

Yesterday we went to a wedding.  Thanks Matt and Martha!!

A friend said to us today, "Was it a Wedding you went to or was it an Anniversary?".  I understood their point: Usually the only time people our age go to weddingy things it is to take part - or for someone on their second or third attempt.  One of the blessings of Christian ministry is having young people who know you!

What strikes me these days is the radical nature of the words of Christian marriage in our society.  In a way I mourn the loss of social Christianity but in another way I love the thought that the simple words that once resounded every Saturday in every Parish Church now seem more Corbynite-radical than the Government's newly invented Same Sex Marriage idea.

Better than that, although the ideas of prayer and blessing, of hymns and Bible readings seem radical because they are, well, quite religious in a secularised culture the really radical bit isn't religious at all:

to have and to hold

from this day forward;

for better, for worse,

for richer, for poorer,

in sickness and in health,

to love and to cherish,

till death us do part.

When I write isn't religious at all I am both right and wrong.  Such promises as above can be made - are made - by rabid atheists or ruminating agnostics.  However they are dying out with the dying interest in Church weddings.  Sometimes they are not replaced by anything much (in my experience) but a flowery insistence of lifelong dotage or mutual self-fulfilment.  Here's an example:

I am proud to take you as my husband/wife. For all the time we have been together, there has always been the kind of mutual understanding which is only shared when there is true love. You have helped me triumph over challenges presented, encouraged my personal growth and boosted my self-esteem.

You have helped me become the person I am today, and with your help, I will be a better person tomorrow than I was yesterday.

Like the arrival of the Humanist funeral there is a refreshing honesty about these vows.  They more accurately reflect what most people mostly mean.  Perhaps they represent the most that can be really expected without the help of the Lord and the example of Calvary.

A Son's Tribute - Holding Hands

My Mum and Dad often held hands.  Not just at the beginning of their courtship but right through to their Golden Wedding Anniversary and several years beyond.  People sometimes remarked about it, for plenty of married couples don't hold hands much anymore.

 

Perhaps the most significant thing is this though: they were holding hands at the end of their marriage.

 

Just about everyone holds hands at the beginning.  As the old Prayer Book has it -

 

Then shall they give their troth to each other in this manner. The Minister, receiving the Woman at her father's or friend's hands, shall cause the Man with his right hand to take the Woman by her right hand, and to say after him as followeth.

 

Even a humanist celebrant in the Registry Office will instruct similarly.

 

There are no such instructions for the end of a Marriage though.  Many marriages in my parents' lifetimes have ended with a shout, an angry letter, a slammed door or at the very best a formal handshake as the solicitors finish their mediation of a tolerable settlement.

 

As my Dad lay dying, thus ending his marriage as he vowed he would - 'til death do us part - my Mum was kindly brought to his bedside and there, at the moment of his death (and the death of the marriage) she was holing his hand.

 

Of course it is fanciful to imagine that such a beautiful ending can always be secured in a world of sudden accidents and striking illnesses.  But for all of us who have made those vows as we held hands on our Wedding Day it is far less fanciful to hold to the determination that at least we should want to hold hands when our marriage ends. That was what the vow meant, wasn't it?



Rites

 

Saturday I was conducting a Wedding.

Sunshine, specially printed Orders of Service, specially chosen music, reunited family and friends, invitations to eat, specially smart clothes, flowers,  official certificates, smiling faces, photographers, bubbles, excitement, congratulations, toasts . . .

Yesterday I was conducting a Funeral.

Sunshine, specially printed Orders of Service, specially chosen music, reunited family and friends, invitations to eat, specially smart clothes, flowers, official certificates, faces in tears, no photographers, no bubbles, no excitement, no congratulations, no toasts . .

In every wedding there is a funeral.  Say it after me . . .

until we are parted by death

What a miserable thing it appears to be that in our most glowingly romantic hour we intone our certain end.  For a Christian this is greatly mitigated by its opposite, courtesy of our Saviour:

In every funeral there is a wedding.

And I saw a new heaven and a new earth, for the first heaven and the first earth had passed away, and there was no more sea.  And I, John, saw the holy city, New Jerusalem, coming down from God out of Heaven, prepared as a bride adorned for her husband.  And I heard a great voice out of Heaven, saying, "Behold, the tabernacle of God is with men, and He will dwell with them; and they shall be His people, and God Himself shall be with them and be their God.  And God shall wipe away all tears from their eyes, and there shall be no more death, neither sorrow, nor crying, neither shall there be any more pain; for the former things are passed away."