A wedding is one of the most sacred events on this planet. There are few things that better image the love that God has for us. Repeatedly in the Bible the image of a wedding is used to describe God’s relationship with us. The Bible begins with a wedding–between Adam and Eve–and closes with the marriage of God to his Bride, the Church. He ridiculously loves us, and wants nothing more than to be united to us at the deepest level–heart to heart, soul to soul. There is no greater cause for joy than this union. And that’s why we celebrate at weddings.
We essentially proclaim “This is the type of love that is worth celebrating; it can’t get any truer, any deeper than this. This is beauty and this is joy.”
Now the Jews of Jesus’ time had a beautiful understanding of this sacred union. Their wedding festivities lasted the good deal of a week, and were filled with party after party. And dancing. Plenty of dancing.
They rightfully believed that there was nothing else that deserved a greater celebration than a wedding.
So, while some people rightfully cling to the sacredness and reverence that should be inherent to all wedding ceremonies, something in me grins widely when I see a video like this:
Now I’m not sure if this wedding party was celebrating the deep mystical love of God or not, but either way I think they were telling the world something that needs to be said: “This love is worth celebrating!”
There is a definite line between reverence and desecration and I think something like this might be more appropriate outside the sacrifice of the Wedding Mass, but I think that we as Christians need to celebrate significantly more than we do today. If we have what we claim to have, namely the greatest news in the world, then our ‘celebrations’ don’t often reflect it.
Our message says that we have all screwed-up and have repeatedly left the only One who truly loves us, yet He’s relentlessly pursued us past death, all the way to the altar, and is now inviting us to dive into His crazy life of love. He has cleansed us, purified us for the wedding, all so that we can eternally celebrate with Him.
So, let’s celebrate like we have something to celebrate. Because we do!
“Christians have nothing to say to the world until they throw better parties.” – Rob Bell