We were standing in the hallway as Ivy, the wedding coordinator, was lining us all up in the correct order to take our part in the wedding ceremony. In that moment it occured to me, “this almost feels like we are playing parts in a play.” Is all of the ceremony of a wedding necessary? Why do we go through all of the effort to act out all of the parts of a structured and formal wedding ceremony? I think ceremony is incredibly valuable because it reveals the meaning of the truths that it represents. Symbols and rituals are things that point us to the intersection of Heaven and Earth, the place where spiritual meets physical (Rom. 8). Ceremony brings focus and attention to things that are deep and significant. Ceremony causes us to personally experience those deep meanings and truth. Without the ceremony of a wedding, we would never witness the radiance of a bride as she enters the room in a beautiful dress on the biggest day of her life, and we would never witness the tender emotions of an awestruck groom overwhelmed with love and joy at the sight of her. We would never know what that feels like.
God meant for a wedding ceremony to be a picture of the day that we see Him face to face and live with Him forever and ever. Every time we act out a wedding ceremony it is a beautiful reminder of that reunion day. When we see the bride, in all of her radiant beauty, we experience what God experiences when he looks at us. When we see the groom’s reaction to the Bride, we feel with him and experience how we are seen through God’s eyes. When we witness the covenants that the bride and groom make, we are reminded of the covenant that God has made with us. Yes, ceremony is necessary! What a beautiful reminder of God’s love for us!
