The Wedding Day
The Wedding Day
Hail wedded love! mysterious law, true source
Of human offspring, sole propriety
In Paradise: of all things common else.
Far be it I should write you sin or blame,
Or think you unbefitting holiest place,
Perpetual fountain of domestic sweets!
– John Milton
It is your wedding day! Long anticipated but here at last! Once it seemed as though the long, dragging hours would never reach this happy time, but God has been better than all your fears, and has brought you to the longed-for goal. Hearty congratulations! May the hours of today be as brimful of joy as flowers and music, the good wishes of the old and the mirth of the young, as the blessing of God and man can make them. And when twenty-five or fifty summers have come and gone, may this day be celebrated by you and your twin soul as the threshold of a union of ever-increasing blessedness.
The bridegroom will surely be up at the break of day, so he can linger over his prayers, prayers in which thanksgiving and petitions will mingle: thanksgiving that He who said, It is not good that the man should be alone (Genesis 2:18), and who made man, male and female, neither complete without the other, has brought to him the woman who shall complete his nature and make his paradise; and petition that he may be able to meet the trust committed to him by the woman’s heart, which has abandoned itself to his keeping, foregoing all others who may have counted it an honor to serve her tiniest whim, and that in him the full meaning of her being may be realized and completed.
And won’t the bride pause before Him who implanted in her nature that trustful love whose instincts she has followed with prayer? No hand can still her fluttering heart, no voice can reassure, and no presence can deepen the inward bliss like His who at Cana made common water redden into the luscious sanctified wine.
There can be no doubt as to the divine institution and authority of marriage. From the time of man’s innocence in Eden, it has had the divine blessing. And Jesus expressly gave the approval of the new covenant to the original command, when He reiterated the ancient words that a man should leave his father and his mother and cleave to his wife and that they would be one flesh. Tender are the ties of home with the mother that bore, the sister that tended, and the father that watched the onset of life and taught the boy to shoot his first arrow, kick his first ball, or take his first dive. All these must yield in strength and tenacity to the call of that masterful love which says of two lives, “You shall no longer be two, but one.”
The Hindu holds that man is only a complete being when he becomes a triad – man, woman, child. We dare not go so far, for the light of these Christian centuries shines clearly on noble characters which have been nurtured in loneliness. In many saints it has seemed as though the man and the woman, the strong and the tender, the full-grown and the childlike, have blended into one personality. Above all, the holy and complete character of our Master, Jesus Christ, the one perfect flower that has unfolded from the stem of our race, forbids the idea that we can only be perfected through marriage. Still, it is true for most of us that the way to the fullest life is through marriage and the discipline of the home.
It is a solemn as well as a happy thought that the union is for life. As the familiar formula puts it, the marriage will continue till death us do part. One exception exists, which by its very nature violates the marriage bond; there is no power that can dissolve the sacred union of man and wife in matrimony. On one occasion, during His matchless life, our Lord was assailed with the question, Is it lawful for a man to put away his wife for every cause? (Matthew 19:3). One party among the Jews held that divorce was legitimate on the ground of the least dislike the husband might have toward his wife, and this was without doubt in their minds when they asked their question. Our Lord did not hesitate but led them back to the origin of marriage, where God made one woman for one man and commanded man to cleave to her. What therefore God hath joined together, let not man put asunder. And I say unto you, Whosoever shall put away his wife, except it be for fornication, and shall marry another, committeth adultery: and whoso marrieth her which is put away commits adultery (Matthew 19:6, 9). From the decision of those lips, there can be no appeal. And for you, their chief meaning and importance lies in the blessed assurance that you two, made for each other, as you have so often said, are deemed from this day, by God and man, as inseparably one.
Good-hearted wishes are sent your way: that the wedding ceremony may pass without a hitch; that the home festivities may combine grave and gaiety, tears and laughter, like April weather but with more sun than showers. It might not be out of place, however, to remind you to send some of the flowers and other decorations to the poor or the orphaned children that they may rejoice with you.
From the door of many homes, old shoes were thrown after the carriage in which the happy pair drove from the bride’s home for their honeymoon. This is said to have originated in the Jewish custom referred to in the book of Ruth of transferring authority by taking off and handing over the shoe. If this is so, the idea was that the father transferred to the bridegroom the right of putting his foot on the neck of the bride – an altogether odious and barbarous concept. Our modern fashion of throwing handfuls of rice as a token of the wish that there would never be a lack of necessaries in the new home is preferred. It seems to be reminiscent of the old Aryan homesteads in the Far East where rice is the main foodstuff.
Now the long-expected hour of union has come, but it must be remembered that each must think more of the other than of self. Neither must make self-indulgence or selfish pleasure the rule of thought or action. Each must think of the other more than of self. Each must place the health, the well-being, the comfort, the inclination of the other first. And if a conflict comes as to which shall yield most to the other, then as being the stronger of the two, the husband must consider what is best from the viewpoint of the true welfare of the woman entrusted to him. He must always be the girded partner, the watchful eye, quick to detect the first trace of fatigue or over-wearied nerves. It is for him to exert the strong will of his constraint because she is the weaker of the two.
In the sacred ties of marriage, there should be the same reverence, delicacy, and purity that have prevailed in the preceding months or years of courtship. Reason and the recognition of the presence of Christ and His holy angels must always influence all the relationships of our lives. Whether we eat or drink or whatever we do, may we do all to the glory of God, always bearing in mind that nothing which God has created can in itself be common or unclean, unless it is desecrated by the selfish and unholy passion of man.
Shouldn’t the reading of the Word of God and prayer cast a halo of blessing on this memorable day? Doesn’t the very excess of joy call for united expression to the Giver of all good? Isn’t there a need that husband and wife should together commit to Him the keeping of their sacred treasure, that He might guard it from any injury it might suffer from their mistake or sin? And in their prayers, let them not forget the hearts that sorely miss them in the family circles they have left.
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Paradise Lost,