This weekend, I have the staggering privilege of officiating my niece's wedding near Dallas. I've performed a number of weddings - not dozens and dozens, but enough to have a variety of experiences. The level of crying at these weddings has ranged from zero to moderate to the longest snot-rope I've ever seen dangling from anyone's nose, let alone a bride's. My concern this time is whether or not I will keep it all together - this will be the first time I've officiated for a family member, and the first time for someone I once held as a baby.
I remember the first wedding I officiated. I was still in seminary while serving at a church. Two of my close seminary friends got engaged and asked me to do their premarital counseling and officiate their wedding. At first, it was all exciting adventure into new territory and I jumped in with eagerness, a tiny measure of fear, and a paltry sense that I knew what I was doing. But these were two friends also going through seminary, and they graciously empathized all the way.
On the day of the wedding, exactly 5 minutes before we were supposed to walk out into the sanctuary, I realized something I had somehow never thought of before. I can't do this!!! Who am I to declare two people married? Wait a minute ... just because I say a few words and sign a document, poof! my two friends are now suddenly husband and wife? Hocus pocus, abracadabra, Turtle Power! And now they are united in a covenant before God and have a new legal status before the state. I can't do that! That's only for real pastors.
My head spun, I actually checked to see where the exit was, and I started drumming up excuses. Failing to find a good enough excuse, I just walked out there and started what we had planned on. It turned out to be a fun, joyful, and memorable wedding. Not primarily because of me ... which means I succeeded in just kickstarting the ceremonial part of it and then getting out of the way.
Today, this couple has four wonderful, fun-loving kids and are living in Spain serving as missionaries, learning anew how to thrive in a different setting as a family.
Then I mentally run through all the other couples for whom I've had this honor, and I see parents, expecting parents, adoptive parents, and future parents. I see people building a household, involved in their communities, influencing others, and even helping younger couples prepare for marriage. I see them post their joys and challenges online, with snapshots of living life as family.
I'm taking no credit for that - not in the least. Rather, I'm reveling in the amazing privilege it is to stand before a couple and before God and look past the horizon to envision all that can blossom from marriage. The trials, difficulties, and disappointments are all real, but what can multiply from marriage is enough to make a grown man cry. Especially an uncle standing before his niece, a young man (who had better watch his step!), and God.
Maybe I could go for that snot-rope record...
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