Weddings!

I've been thinking a lot about weddings recently. You see, my godson Terry, and his fiance' LaRae, are having a wedding on the beach in Mexico Beach, Florida in less than two weeks, so I'm having to study up to be ready. Of course I'm prejudiced, but I see in them a real devotion to each other, and to God, that will see them through quite a few troubles in life.

You've got to wonder, with divorce rates as high as they are, why two people would even want a relationship, much less get married. Why does God put such a high emphasis on marriage, when it is so difficult to sustain? It is so important, that God even uses a marriage to represent the relationship between Christ and the church!

I think it goes to the verse in Genesis 2:24 "Therefore a man leaves his father and his mother and clings to his wife, and they become one flesh." We human types are made in the image of God (in the image of God he created them; male and female he created them Gen 1:27). So do we all have a physical characteristic that is like God's? Nose perhaps, eyes set just so? No, because God is a spirit, it is in our spirits that we resemble Him. But if men and women are so different (and they are) how is THAT possible?

I think the man resembles God in His strength, in His vengeance and justice (The LORD is a warrior, the LORD is His name - Exodus 15:3). Most boys, as they play, find ways to fight battles. I remember picking up a long stick from a tree and being Robin Hood, or some other sword carrying crusader. As we grow older, we turn the fighting to competition, sports, girls, pretty much any way we can. But the need to fight for a worthy cause never really leaves us, even as we suppress it in the corporate world around.

The women, on the other hand, resembles God in His beauty. In the love and compassion that is in the female make-up. Where most boys fight, wrestle, and so on, most girls play is involved in some type of relationship. Tea parties, dress up, even sleep overs, their play involves nurturing the relationship.

God, in all His glory, is both of these at the same time. So the couple "becoming as one" is how the marriage represents God Himself. And this is something the evil one cannot stand. This is why he tried to bust up Adam and Eve from the beginning. Because the two together were the image of God on earth. And trust me, he still tries to destroy marriage anytime he can, unfortunately, divorce rates seem to prove him very successful.

But the two becoming one goes even deeper than this. In the beginning, God and Adam (and we presume Eve, too) walked and talked together. They shared everything between them. They had...wait for it....a RELATIONSHIP! There was nothing hidden between them, no secrets, no fears, only love. But after the serpent incident, all that was shattered, there was a barrier that blocked us out, kept us from that intimacy. And God would not stop until that intimacy was restored! He called, He scolded, He begged, He wooed, He came through time and time again, and finally, He came to earth and paid the ultimate price, His own life, to restore all that had been. All for love.

The marriage shows just that love. That the man would leave everything he has known, father and mother and home, just to bring the woman to be with him, to love intimately, no secrets, no fears, only love. And that she would give her love, totally, completely, vulnerable, yet trusting in her husband's strength. God wants us that intimately, that desperately, and continues to draw in the church as his bride.

When I asked Terry how he saw the relationship between himself and LaRae, he said with no hesitation "We are like one, soul mates, each part of the other." So at the end of the ceremony on June 25th, I plan on saying "I now pronounce that these two have become one, intricately woven by God Himself, Husband and Wife together. Whom therefore God has joined together, let No Man break asunder!"

May it be so between Christ and us, His church.