I got home late last night, and wanted to watch the local news. We couldn’t, because all three networks were showing live coverage of the parade of nobles streaming into Westminster Abbey for the royal wedding. We left the TV on, expecting to snicker at the pointless pomp and circumstance. Instead, we were quickly drawn into the majesty of the moment. We finally turned off the TV at 12:30am. I know many in Hawaii who were up later, and others on the mainland who woke up at 2am so they wouldn’t miss it.
What is it about this wedding that’s so fascinating to us?
Typical celebrity worship? Maybe. The result of years of brainwashing by Disney fairy tales, leading us to be instinctively drawn to anything having to do with royalty? Very possible.
But I think there’s more.
According to the blathering commentators last night, William and Kate have already been living together for a while. But I don’t remember any parades being held for their move-in day. I don’t think anyone woke up at 2am to watch them sign the lease together, even though this was the second-in-line to the throne and the potential mother of the third. So what made the wedding so different?
The vows.
The commitment. The covenant. I can’t remember how many times I heard Matt Lauer say on TV, “Life will be completely different for this couple starting today.” Why? Because of the commitment they were making to each other.
In our individualistic age, we all have commitment-phobia to some degree or another. Committing ourselves to anyone else – and especially to someone ’till death do us part – feels like it might hinder our transient lifestyles.
But we all long for this kind of commitment, and that’s what made this day so compelling. Even as divorce rates are rising and marriage rates are plummeting, we’re still instinctively drawn to the marriage covenant.
Which is exactly how God designed us. But not just so we can live happily ever after with a husband or wife by our side. The covenant of marriage points us to something infinitely greater.
Paul describes it in Ephesians 4: “A man shall leave his father and mother and hold fast to his wife, and the two shall become one flesh. This mystery is profound, and I am saying that it refers to Christ and the church.”
The reason God gave us marriage was primarily to show us the kind of relationship he wants to have with us.
A royal wedding between God and his people.
He says in 2 Corinthians 6, “I will make my dwelling among them and walk among them, and I will be their God, and they shall be my people.”
Just like human marriage, this covenant is for better, for worse. For richer, for poorer. In sickness and in health. God wants to commit himself to us through the sacrifice of his son Jesus Christ, and that doesn’t depend on anything we do. As Paul says in 2 Timothy 2, “If we are faithless, he remains faithful.” We’re all desperate for that kind of commitment!
So go ahead and enjoy the majesty of this royal moment. But let it point you to the coming royal wedding that will be infinitely more majestic and eternally significant.