So, Why Get Married? What's a Wedding For?

Been to a wedding lately?

If you’re in your twenties or thirties, I’m sure you have, or are likely to be going to one soon.  It’s the wedding season.  Have you noticed?

What’s your favorite part of a wedding?  Okay, besides the free drinks at the reception.  Wait, I know, it’s the dancing, right?  Especially after a few drinks have been downed, that’s when the real fun begins.  Don’t you think?

Well, I know one thing: the ceremony is the least favorite by far.  So much so that, if they can get away with it, many will head straight for the reception and bypass the ceremony altogether.  It’s as if the wedding is really one big excuse for a wild party, nothing more.

Yet, the sad truth about weddings is that less than fifty percent of marriages will stay together.  Depending on which statistic you read, a little over half of all marriages in the U.S. will end in divorce.  Where’s the love?

Of course, many couples don’t even bother anymore: “I don’t need a piece of paper to tell me with whom I’m in love or to whom I’m committed,” some say.  “We’re in love and we’re happy together and that’s all that counts,” they might add.

I might argue that there are some real, practical and logistical, social and economic reasons why getting married and obtaining a legal marriage license is much better than just “shacking up” or “living together,” especially when it comes to having children.  But I’ll pass on addressing those reasons for now.

Here’s the real question.  Why a church wedding?  Granted, many choose not to have a church wedding as such and come up with very imaginative venues and formats for that special event.  Still, there’s always the clergy-person that’s there, making that fateful declaration: “I now pronounce you Husband and Wife.”

Do you believe in a Greater Power?  If you do, you want that Greater Power’s blessing.  Do you not?  That is what is at the core of a church wedding, the religious ceremony.  God’s blessing.

I submit to you that one of the many immediate and pressing reasons why more than half of all U.S. marriages end up in divorce is that couples are committing their lives to each other in the strength of, and on the basis of, their own ability to “make it work.”  And, sooner or later, many discover to their surprise that love is not enough and realize that they neither have the strength, the capacity, the skill, nor the will to make it work to the end.  It just becomes too much for them to deal with—trying to shape or change or depend upon another needy human being to meet one’s own needs and find happiness.

Humans need a Greater-Power other than themselves in order to “make it work.”  Love is not enough.  Human love is fickle, frail, and weak, conditional and needy.  It can’t handle the challenges of marriage on its own.  What is needed is God’s all-wise authority along with God’s un-conditional love over a marriage.  Couples need the power and authority of God over them.  Yet, more and more, couples, including those who declare faith in God, are minimizing this essential point in their marriages and at their wedding ceremonies.

A religious wedding ceremony ostensibly is about God.  It is recognition that the Blessing of God upon a couple is not only wanted but needed.  God’s greater authority, power, and wisdom is needed and requested in behalf of the newlywed couple.

In that light, a religious wedding ceremony is also a proclamation of faith, and a declaration of obedience to that faith, the couple promising fealty not only to each other but to God as well: “I, we, submit to God and His will and purpose for our lives.”  In that light, God’s blessing is being asked for—so that, “if God be for us, who can be against us.”

If a couple takes such a religious ceremony seriously, regarding its vows and its request for God’s presence and blessing (and that’s a big “if”), the couple has a much better chance of having a lasting and successful marriage—meaningful, fruitful, enduring, and ever expanding and growing with regard to mutual care, nurture, and respect.

As we all know, a good marriage takes work, hard work.  And, there is no guarantee of success.  There can’t be.  We’re human.  Still, with a willing spirit-of-submission to that Higher-Authority/Greater-Power that we call God, we have a much, much better chance of success.  With God’s input—His Wisdom and His Authority, His Truth and Spirit working in and through us—as we learn to submit to God, we’ll have all we need apart from our own inner needy dependent selves, to make it work.

I know.  I’ve been married now for going on twenty-nine years.  It’s not been easy.  Indeed, sometimes it’s been rather harsh and painful (of which my wife can testify).  But because we believe in God and because we are willing to submit to His Authority and plead for His grace and mercy in our lives when we mess up (to correct and change me, on my part, for example), we’re still together.  And our love and respect for each other is only getting better as the years go by—by the grace of God.