Wedding

Yesterday I had the honor and privilege of performing the wedding ceremony of my oldest son, Nigel, and his bride Janelle. I was quite moved when he asked me: first to be so considered by him, and second as it is a continuation of a tradition started by my father who performed my wedding ceremony.

I'm posting the ceremony here as a way of sharing my joy with anyone who wishes to read it. The greeting and vows are a slight reworking of traditional vows. The prayer and message were written by me.



Greeting

Dear friends, out of affection for Nigel Mitchell and Janelle Clark we have gathered together to witness and bless their mutual vows which will unite them in marriage. To this moment they bring the fullness of their hearts as a treasure to share with one another. They bring the dreams which bind them together. They bring that particular personality and spirit which is uniquely their own, and out of which will grow the reality of their life together. We rejoice with them as the outward symbol of an inward union of hearts, a union, blessed by God, created by friendship, respect and love.

No person should attend a wedding without giving thanks to God for the sacrament of marriage, and renewing in his heart the vows that are being taken for the first time by others. No person should leave without doing that for which he came..... praying that God's blessing may truly rest upon this man and this woman all the days of their life together. As you pray, so may you also receive a blessing. And so, let us pray:

Heavenly Father, as we have gathered to witness and celebrate the union of Nigel and Janelle in holy matrimony we pray your blessing and goodwill on their lives; we pray that your grace would envelop them, that your providence would protect them, that your word would guide them, and that your love would inspire them. This we ask in the name of Jesus. Amen.

Wedding message

Marriage has existed throughout human history, and whether we take the language of Genesis to be literal or figurative, the principle is the same: that God himself determined that it was not good for man to be alone. "So God created man in his own image; male and female he created them." Countless centuries later, Jesus clarified God's intentions and authenticated a Christian ethic of marriage which has informed Western Civilization's view, not just of the sacredness of marriage, but the responsibility and accountability of men and the dignity and humanity of women, elevated from the status of chattel characterized by so many pre-christian and non-christian cultures. In the Gospel of Matthew we read that Jesus said, "Have you not read that he who created them from the beginning made them male and female, and said, 'Therefore a man shall leave his father and his mother and hold fast to his wife, and they shall become one flesh?' So they are no longer two but one flesh. What therefore God has joined together, let not man separate."

Fundamental to this Christian ethic is that, rather than property acquisition, social status, or business or political alliance, marriage is to be based on love. The apostle Paul put it this way in his letter to the Ephesians: "Husbands, love your wives, as Christ loved the church and gave himself up for her, that he might sanctify her, having cleansed her by the washing of water with the word, so that he might present the church to himself in splendor, without spot or wrinkle or any such thing, that she might be holy and without blemish. In the same way husbands should love their wives as their own bodies. He who loves his wife loves himself. For no one ever hated his own flesh, but nourishes and cherishes it, just as Christ does the church..."

It's fitting that this, perhaps most radical idea of all--that this life-long commitment and bonding of family should find its source in mutual love--is the one we most revere. It fuels our stories--our literature, films, poetry, music--indeed almost all of our art. And it's why, today, we have gathered to celebrate this declaration of love, and these vows of commitment.


Wedding vows: Nigel & Janelle face each other join right hands



(to the Groom)  Do you, Nigel Mitchell, in the presence of God,family and friends, promise to love and to cherish, in sickness and in health, in prosperity and in adversity, this woman whose right hand you now hold?  Do you promise to be to her in all things a true and faithful husband, to be devoted to her, and to her only, as long as life shall last? And do you take her to be your lawful, wedded wife, as long as you both shall live?   (He answers “I do.”)
 
(to the Bride)  Do you, Janelle Clark, in the presence of God, family and friends, promise to love and to cherish, in sickness and in health, in prosperity and in adversity, this man whose right hand you now hold?  Do you promise to be to him in all things a true and faithful wife, to be devoted to him, and to him only, as long as life shall last?  Do you take him to be your lawfully, wedded husband, as long as you both shall live?   (She answers, “I do.”)

Ring vows

Let us pray. Bless, O Lord, the giving and receiving of these rings. May Nigel and Janelle abide in Your peace and grow in their knowledge of Your presence through their loving union. May the seamless circle of these rings become the symbol of their enduring love and serve to remind them of the holy covenant into which they have entered today to be faithful, loving, and kind to each other. Dear God, may they live in Your grace and be forever true to this union. Amen.

(to the groom) Nigel, repeat after me: "Janelle, I give you this ring as a symbol of our vows, ...and with all that I am, and all that I have, I honor you. ...In the name of the Father, and of the Son, and of the Holy Spirit. ...With this ring, I thee wed."

(to the bride) Janelle, repeat after me: "Nigel, I give you this ring as a symbol of our vows, ...and with all that I am, and all that I have, I honor you. ...In the name of the Father, and of the Son, and of the Holy Spirit. ...With this ring, I thee wed."

Pronouncement

Nigel and Janelle, you are now man and wife according to the witness of this assembly and the law of Oregon. Become one, Fulfill your promises. Love and serve the Lord. What therefore God has joined together, let no man separate. You may kiss the bride.



Presentation of the couple

Ladies and gentlemen, may I present to you mister and misses Nigel Mitchell!

The Law of Love

If you really fulfill the royal law according to the Scripture, "You shall love your neighbor as yourself," you are doing well. But if you show partiality, you are committing sin and are convicted by the law as transgressors. For whoever keeps the whole law but fails in one point has become accountable for all of it. For he who said, "Do not commit adultery," also said, "Do not murder." If you do not commit adultery but do murder, you have become a transgressor of the law.(James 2:8-11 ESV)

A prevalent concept among evangelicals is that the law of Moses was superseded by Jesus with a simple ethic of love; as though all one has to do under the new covenant of Christ is love God and all the rest will take care of itself. One unspoken implication of this is an interpretation of love as a sentiment. In other words, have the right emotions, feel a certain way, and you're okay. As if this were not bad enough, a more crucial implication is that this idea of loving God is something that Jesus introduced as distinct and different from the law of Moses. Nothing could be further from the truth.

When the lawyer asked Jesus what the greatest commandment of the Law was, and Jesus answered,"You shall love the Lord your God with all your heart and with all your soul and with all your mind. This is the great and first commandment. And a second is like it: You shall love your neighbor as yourself. On these two commandments depend all the Law and the Prophets,"(Matthew 22:37-40 ESV), Jesus was actually quoting the law himself, specifically Deuteronomy 6:5 and Leviticus 19:18. Consider, for instance, that in the Gospel of Luke the tables are turned and Jesus asks a lawyer, "What is written in the Law? How do you read it?", and the lawyer answers with the same two verses. What Jesus and all his Mosaic Law scholar-interrogators understood perfectly well was that love was not distinct from the Law: it was the law. All the rest of it, the rules, and commandments and prohibitions were merely the practical outworking of that law of love.

The radical part of Jesus' message was to identify how pallid and compromised human interpretation of that law had become, and how hopeless it was to achieve by self-righteous effort. When Jesus assented to the lawyer's answer, and the lawyer, desiring to justify himself, said to Jesus, "And who is my neighbor?" (Luke 10:29), Jesus answered him with the parable of the good Samaritan, an object of racial loathing by pious Jews of the day.

When Jesus told his disciples how difficult it would be for a rich person to enter the Kingdom of God, they despaired: "Who then can be saved" But Jesus looked at them and said, "With man this is impossible, but with God all things are possible." (Matthew 19:25,26 ESV)

This is the hopeless dilemma of man the apostle Paul spoke of: For I delight in the law of God, in my inner being, but I see in my members another law waging war against the law of my mind and making me captive to the law of sin that dwells in my members, (Romans 7:22,23 ESV)

Judged by this law of love, when I look to my own self I see what a pathetic and degenerate sinner I am, thoroughly lost without God's grace and the justification of Christ; for if I am commanded, in the very first and most important commandment, to love God with all my being, I cannot in all honesty, identify even one moment when I have loved God with all my heart and all my soul and all my mind.

...who on earth can set me free from the clutches of my sinful nature? I thank God there is a way out through Jesus Christ our Lord.
No condemnation now hangs over the head of those who are "in" Jesus Christ. For the new spiritual principle of life "in" Christ lifts me out of the old vicious circle of sin and death.
The Law never succeeded in producing righteousness - the failure was always the weakness of human nature. But God has met this by sending his own Son Jesus Christ to live in that human nature which causes the trouble. And, while Christ was actually taking upon himself the sins of men, God condemned that sinful nature. (Romans 7:24-8:3 Phillips translation)

But now we are seeing the righteousness of God declared quite apart from the Law (though amply testified to by both Law and Prophets) - it is a righteousness imparted to, and operating in, all who have faith in Jesus Christ. (For there is no distinction to be made anywhere: everyone has sinned, everyone falls short of the beauty of God's plan.) Under this divine system a man who has faith is now freely acquitted in the eyes of God by his generous dealing in the redemptive act of Jesus Christ. God has appointed him as the means of propitiation, a propitiation accomplished by the shedding of his blood, to be received and made effective in ourselves by faith. God has done this to demonstrate his righteousness both by the wiping out of the sins of the past (the time when he withheld his hand), and by showing in the present time that he is a just God and that he justifies every man who has faith in Jesus Christ. (Romans 3:21-26 Phillips translation)