Timothy Stoner

A Wedding Charge: On Being an Icon of Love and Death

Posted on 03. Jun, 2010 by Tim Stoner in Christian Life, Essays

Thirty years ago an audacious young man stood at the front of a church auditorium. It was filled with older folks, many of them married for longer than he had been alive and he was speaking to them about the sacrament of marriage. It was my wedding day and I was delivering the brief theological talk. As I look back on that day I wonder, where did I get the chutzpah? It still mystifies me a little.

On May 23 of this year, in Nashville, Tennessee, I repeated that task at the request of my niece, Aubrey. She did not know that 358 months earlier, I, much thinner, sporting a moustache and a polyester three-piece-suit, had done much the same thing—for the first and only time. Reviewing what that young seminarian said, it is comforting to realize that the core has not changed all that much. Deeper, sure, but not different—not substantially. Marriage is a holy picture. I had so much to learn but I had that right, at least.     

Aubrey, I’m sure, intending no pun whatsoever, wanted her ceremony to have weight. I understood what she meant. The tendency over the past decade seems to be toward nice and sweet—and quick. It has made me wonder whether these McCeremonies, with their breezy and redacted vocabularies are tell-tale, residual silhouettes that testify to the current weightlessness of marriage. In a rush to be fresh and innovative, the ritual is torn loose from its ancient, historical and mythical moorings. What remains is so light and insubstantial it could be spun into cotton candy at the fairground.

But, this young couple, Patrick and Aubrey, wise, and serious, and thoughtful, wanted their wedding to provide a counter point; to break a spell, so to speak. They wanted it to celebrate and remind, and recover, for those who’d forgotten, the cost and significance of the holy thing that was transpiring before their eyes.

“What we engage in today,” I began, “is much more than a sober and serious ceremony. It is a unique liturgical act.” They wanted heavy, so I did not want to disappoint.

“This ceremony is a transformative, communal liturgy. It is transformative because it changes two people into something they never were before. It is communal because it requires witnesses who do two things: testify to the vows taken and affirm their life-long support of those vows. Many who come to weddings don’t realize that they also are making promises–to strengthen the wedding vows and never to undermine them. This is a reminder that we are all in this thing together. And, it is liturgical because the triune God is uniquely present to sanctify the vows being made.

So we all come together today, each of us playing our important roles.

This is a holy ceremony—I concur with those who call it a sacrament. It is physical act that carries within it spiritual graces, which involves spiritual covenants and points to spiritual realities. In a few moments, you will be participating in another transformative sacrament: the Eucharistic meal which is a participation in the body and blood of Jesus. Physical, material elements that are imbued mysteriously with the real presence of our Lord. Real bread, real wine pointing to the earthy joys of fellowship around good food and friends who’ve become one family, and above all, to spiritual communion with the lover of our souls.

Those elements are real, Christ’s presence and grace are real, so, I will take that as permission to be real. And so I say to you that–

Marriage is not for cowards.

Neither is it for naïve romantics.

It is a covenant relationship for realists—entered into by two people who are real red-blooded sinners, who are signing up for something that is way bigger than they are and way harder than they could possibly imagine—but that holds the promise of bestowing more satisfaction, security, comfort, encouragement, pleasure—more flat-out joy than they could have hoped for or deserve.

As your Grandma says—if you want to die to self, you need to do two things: get married and have children. She smiles when she says this but she is very serious. Marriage is designed by God to make you a certain kind of a person. What Grandma means is that marriage is meant to kill you. It is meant to put to death that selfish, grasping, self-absorbed, narcissistic, sensual coward in all of us.

No wonder it is so hard.

No wonder it disappoints so many.

No wonder so many find it too hard.

No wonder so many bail on it.

Let me put it this way: marriage is a relationship you choose to help break you of your love affair with yourself.

Marriage is also something God chooses and designed to tell the world a Story. It is the best story of all time. It is the Big Story that gives meaning and purpose to every other story. It is the story about a Mighty King who sent His only Son to give His Life for His bride, to rescue, redeem, reconcile and restore her to her place of honor as His royal companion, His loving and devoted friend, His faithful and submissive bride.

Marriage, St. Paul tells us, is a profound mystery. It is an icon. Protestants don’t have icons, sadly, but you know that they are beautiful, holy pictures that are meant to point us away from themselves to the reality they represent. It depicts profound spiritual relationships—according to Paul, under the direct inspiration of the Holy Spirit, he explains that the husband is representative of Christ as the wife represents Christ’s bride.

Marriage, he is telling us, is a glorious picture intended to point us to a profound reality: the glorious Gospel of grace–forgiveness and reconciliation requiring the ultimate sacrifice. This is why St. Paul exhorts husbands to love their wives as Christ loved the church and gave Himself for her. This is not just nice theological rhetoric. It is not religious hyperbole. The marriage relationship is supposed to be a drama that puts on display the costly love of Jesus for the church.

That’s the glory of marriage and therein lies its almost crushing weight. No wonder God thunders through the prophet: “I hates divorce” (Mal. 2:16). He hates it not only because of the pain and fragmentation it causes. He hates it because it shatters the glorious icon and ruins the Big Story it is meant to depict. It defaces a masterpiece that was meant to display God’s love for the whole world.   

So let me share with you something real about how to do more than simply maintain your wedding vows but how to keep the precious, holy, fragile flame of love alive, and ultimately become a display of the grace of God in Christ. If you take them to heart, your marriage will not only last, it will shine before men such that they will see this good work and glorify your Father who is in heaven. I guarantee it.  

I have said that the husband is to the wife as Christ is to the church. St. Paul uses the term “head”. This is a very unpopular and misunderstood word. It does not mean “boss.” It means ultimately responsible. “Head” means that in the marriage relationship the husband takes the lead: he takes the lead in forgiving, repenting, encouraging, blessing and strengthening. And if the relationship grows sour, he looks to himself first—always. The husband does not point the finger at his wife, like Adam did in the garden. He asks God to expose every wicked way in his own heart. That is the burden of being head. 

Aubrey shared with me that she was amazed at how quickly and deeply she fell in love. ‘What did it for me was his tenderness. When we disagreed it was never an issue of him proving me wrong or one-upping me. It was clear that for him it was more important to be gentle with me than to be right. His gentleness, his consistent, perceptive affirmation was the back-door that God used to heal deep wounds in my heart. And it healed me of my own drive to be right and prove other’s wrong. His verbal affirmation of me as a person revealed to me a bigger picture of God than I had ever known. He helped me learn that God is not as critical of me as I am of myself.’

But she also shared a deep fear. She is afraid, Patrick that your verbal sweetness, your tender affirmation will disappear. It is what she cherishes about you more than anything else. She told me that she worries that in time you both will become like so many couples who over the years stop appreciating each other. ‘I don’t want to wake up one day and find out that we have stopped valuing each other; that we’ve forgotten how special the other is. I am so afraid of losing that.’

Patrick, in those words Aubrey has presented you with the key to her heart. In reality it is the key to every bride’s heart. It is the key to overcoming the sinful selfish tendencies that marriage intentionally exposes, the key to not just surviving, or maintaining, but the key to being a holy icon for all the world to see; an icon of the profound love of a God who gave it all away in order to gain the prize of a radiant, devoted bride without spot or wrinkle, forever. For, what Aubrey is really asking is that as her head that you continue to view her with the eyes of Christ and speak to her with the words of Christ and value her as Christ values His bride. She is asking you to put her needs first.

And, Aubrey, what is there for you to do? Again, quoting St. Paul, I urge you to respect Patrick. Choose to treat him with honor as you would Christ. Choose to grant him respect, confident, forgiving and submissive love as he commits to learn, in his fallible, faltering way, to love you as Christ loves His bride.  

If both of you do this, you will bear the heavy but beautiful weight of being a faithful icon of God’s holy, passionate love for the world. And along the way, you will experience joy others can only long for.

I guarantee it.

Tags: death, divorce, headship, husband, icon, marriage, sacrament, submission, wedding, wife