Living Soberly

 Marriage in God's Kingdom

Over recent years we have witnessed a strange phenomenon.  It concerns couples who have been living together as "partners" (for years in some cases) who then decide they will get married.  They put on a lavish ceremony, replete with designer bride and bridesmaid dresses, limos, hired suits which the guys will never wear again, and a lavish wedding banquet.  In the process they nearly bankrupt themselves. 

Then there are the cut down versions, where moderation rules but only to extent of a final bill of around $30,000 dollars.  What on earth is all this about?  Celebration, say some.  Honouring one another, say others.  Something special to remember, say still more.  Yes, but you have been in a de facto marriage for over a decade, so what's the point.


In many cases it has been so debased that couples going through this affected display are trying to imitate the celebrity marriages which are splashed across women's magazines and the tabloid (mainstream) press and which are portrayed as the epitome of self-fulfilment, success, fame, and good fortune.  In reality they are a charade, an event for self-adulation and the making of money.  Yup--there's money to be made from those wedding pictures.  For many, many moderns wedding ceremonies are their one special day of celebrity stardom, an aping of the "stars".  And that has become the point of the whole tawdry affair. 

It is inevitable that societies recognize marriage in one way or another.  Those that don't, cease to exist, eventually.   But our modern practice is bizarre, to say the least.  Schizophrenic, almost.  Consequently, on the other end of the scale, we observe Christian couples who are starting to choose to go through the reality of marriage but in a way which separates from all the worldly hoopla that has so degraded the sacred institution itself.

They become engaged, then married, without living together for a "trial" period.  They stay faithful to the Scriptures.  But the style of their wedding day is changing and is becoming, as unlike the world's as can be imagined.  In other words, in an ironic way they feel the need to separate themselves from the common hoopla which has meant that the traditional ceremonies have lost their meaning and significance. It is a case of, "Don't do what the world does."  They are seeking to preserve the reality of marriage and the marriage covenant making ceremony, making it more pronounced and have nothing to do with the exaltation of self and of grandiose public display.

We are generalizing here, of course.  But we suspect that it is going to become increasingly the way.  The essence of the marriage covenant for Christians is the taking of public vows, in the presence of witnesses from both families and their extended (predominantly church) community--all being sanctified by the exposition of the Word of God and prayer.  Essentially, a very, very simple (yet profound) occasion.  Given all the hoopla of the world over wedding ceremonies, which has so debased the essence and the truth of the matter, Christians are finding that they want to separate from the worldliness of the pagan understanding of marriage and once again return to the fundamental, sacred realities. 

The betrothed couples choose to wear plain, simple clothes.  The ceremonies are plain but the holy realities of it are pronounced.  Joy and celebration pervade the entire ceremony.  Covenant vows which bind are made,  replacing the aspiration-type utterances now being made up in worldly circles.

It's not a matter of being old fashioned.  It's a matter of being faithful to the Scriptures.  Old fashioned is trying to imitate the wedding day of some Hollywood celebrity.