You May Kiss the Bride

Rev. Joseph Awotwi

Why does anyone need a wedding? Could we have marriage without a wedding ceremony? I dislike it that people go into such huge debts to start off their married lives together. We all know that money issues contribute significantly to marriage break-ups. Sometimes the break up occurs before all the incurred debt from the marriage has been paid off. Then there is the disgusting evening of rehearsal. Everyone is a wedding specialist, telling the pastor what to do and where to stand and what to say. The photographer is more important than the pastor; and the pictures are more important than the words spoken at the ceremony. I wonder how many people at the wedding actually hear the words, “Will all of you, by God’s grace, do everything in your power to uphold and care for these two persons in their marriage?” If the couple has not had a conversation about the sacramental nature of marriage, that surely is not going to happen at the wedding. We are in a hurry to go to the reception! A question I have heard while going through wedding rehearsal is, “When do you say, ‘You may kiss the bride?’” That question comes with all the seriousness as if to say that is the most important statement in the whole ceremony. No wonder we do not take the vows seriously.

Statistics indicate that “Evangelical Christians” [translate hard core Christians] are divorcing at a rate higher than the average in America. Why then does the Christian wedding not have a plan for when the marriage does not work? Should there be a Christian way for dissolving marriage? The story of a couple on HGTV hoping to by a house comes to mind. The man spoke of the “re-sale value” of the house they were about to buy. The woman responded, “We have not yet bought the house and you are talking about re-sale.” When God knew that we could not keep the Ten Commandments as a way of earning our way into a great relationship with God, God made provision for another way by which we may have a great relationship with God – the Way of Jesus “being lifted up from the earth.” Does God know that we cannot keep our marriage covenant? What provision has God made for when we are unable to keep our marriage covenant? The provision God has made is the only thing we can offer. Anything less than that is a sellout of our faith and the marriage covenant!

I am surprised when I consider marriage as practiced by people of old in comparison to people of today. I mean old as in hundred years ago. The people of old seemed to have been able to live with their partners for fifty or sixty years. How come they were able to live “till death do us part?” What has changed that people of today are unable to duplicate what they did? Could it be they thought of the happiness of their spouses first and then their own happiness next? That sounds like the opposite of selfishness. It is unlikely that they lived unhappily for fifty or so plus years because they were afraid to divorce. What was the glue that held them together? What can Christians do to translate the theological basis of marriage into our practical way of living?