Weddings or Marriages?

I don’t know the man who wrote the following words. I copied them from a bulletin who copied it from another bulletin. The writer is Eugene Peterson. I like what he says so I pass it on. I hope you will appreciate it. Here are his words:

“As I talk with people who come to me in preparation for marriage I often say, ‘Weddings are easy; marriages are difficult.’ The couple wants to plan a wedding; I want to plan a marriage. They want to know where the bridesmaids will stand; I want to develop a plan for forgiveness. They want to discuss music of the wedding; I want to talk about emotions of the marriage. I can do a wedding in twenty minutes with eyes shut; a marriage takes year after year of alert wide-eyed attention.

“Weddings are important. They are beautiful; they are impressive; they are emotional; sometimes they are expensive. We weep at weddings as we laugh at weddings. We take care to be at the right place at the right time and say the right words. Where people stand is important. The way people dress is significant. Every detail - this flower, that candle - is memorable. All the same, weddings are easy.

“But marriages are complex and difficult. In marriage we work out in every detail of life the promises and commitments spoken at the wedding. In marriage we develop the long and rich life of faithful love that the wedding announces. The event of the wedding without the life of the marriage doesn't amount to much. It hardly matters if the man and woman dress up in their wedding clothes and re-enact the ceremony every anniversary and say, ‘I’m married, I’m married, I’m married’ if there is no continuing tenderness, no attentive listening, no inventive giving, no creative blessing.”

These words hit the nail on the head. I, too, have performed numerous weddings over the past 41 years and have jokingly said at times that I would rather do a funeral than a wedding because funerals don’t get “undone.” But it isn’t funny.

Marriage is for one man and one woman for life. When asked by the Jews why Moses gave “certificates of divorce” (read Matthew 19:3-9), Jesus said “from the beginning it has not been this way.” Jesus had defined marriage as a man leaving his father and mother and being joined to his wife in order to become one flesh. (v. 5)

The bond of marriage is too easily tied with a slip-knot today. People are giving more attention to weddings than to marriages. Ceremony means more than matrimony. “Matrimony”, by the way, is defined as “the union of man and woman as husband and wife.” (Merriam-Webster’s Collegiate Dictionary). Build your marriage on God.

See you when the saints meet, Lord willing.

Love, Tony