Wedding Season
As both a musician and a pastor, I’ve gotten to participate in a lot of weddings over the course of my life. I think I was 12-years-old when I first played the piano at a ceremony, and I loved it from the start. Weddings are uniquely celebratory days. Everyone at their best and brightest. A feeling of optimism and promise and— well—love!
These days in the USA, up to 45% of all the weddings happen annually in only two months: September and October. Around Elmhurst CRC and in my own extended family, this trend has held true. And while, these days, I tend to officiate more ceremonies than provide music, working alongside couples to prepare for life after the wedding has made me love weddings even more.
Both Pastor Jeff and I have been certified in a premarital counseling method called SYMBIS, an acronym for “Saving–Your–Marriage–Before–It–Starts.” Prospective couples take an introductory survey that churns out 18 pages of data about their values, marital mindset, and expectations based on their experiences with family of origin, and aspirations for their shared future. It’s a lot. After an introductory meeting in which I try to listen to the story of why a couple has chosen one another, it takes another five or six sessions to connect the dots from their survey results to the habits and behaviors that will serve them well for a lifetime to come. There are so many pressures to push couples to fixate on the one, great day that is their wedding. I love being part of the conversation about all the days after that.
At the heart of every wedding is something uniquely strong and beautiful: a covenant. My simple definition of a wedding covenant is this: a promise to stick together—come what may—for all the days from this day forward. In speaking wedding vows and making a covenant, we humans are at our best and most noble because we’re following God’s own example. God makes—and keeps—his covenant promises. He made a promise to Noah and his family and sealed it with the sign of the rainbow. He promised Abraham and Sarah, “I will be your God, you will be my people.” Jesus’ final words to his disciples are another amazing promise from God to us,
“Surely I will be with you always to the very end of the age.”
This coming Sunday, as we dive into Genesis 39 and the story of Joseph in Egypt, this incredible part of God’s nature will be on full display. Even in the darkest of times, God doesn’t desert his people. God is a covenant maker and covenant keeper.
– Pastor Gregg