Weddings are truly amazing and life changing events that define our lives forever – and for good reason. Indeed in a wedding a man and woman start their new life together, that in many ways reconciles so many of the challenges that confront them. Any differences are put aside, sorrows are consoled and the mundane routines of life give way to extraordinary events. It is no wonder that so many have the expectation that their wedding day is “the best day of their life”, and for good reason, as it is a celebration of a dynamic and transformative love!
The challenge that snares so many newly married couples (and married couples) is when that celebration of love that was their wedding day, is seen simply as a past event; isolated, and insulated from the present and future. In short there is a temptation to see their wedding as being just a moment in time, or a unique experience never to be repeated. For many people, the “best day of their life” is tragically just that; a day (albeit a special one).
Once the party is over, the guests have gone home, and the wedding gown has been put in a protective garment bag; all those things that were reconciled in their wedding return. Differences again challenge their relationship, those sorrows return to weigh them down, and life returns to a mundane cycle of activities. Alas, this is the reason we still have so many divorces; and even more tragically, why so many men and women avoid getting married altogether. And who could blame them? Indeed if the expectation is that their wedding is going to be “the best day of their life”, then it stands to reason that nothing really will ever be better than that – or – that after the wedding, it is all downhill.
Of course one only has to look at those who have been happily married for decades, to see that there is a different articulation of this expectation. Without taking anything away from the wonder that is one’s wedding day; understanding it as being “the best day to start their life,”is a context that recognises that “the best day of their life” is the starting point for that shared dynamic and transformative love, to grow into even better days throughout their marriage! I think this is one reason that the Lord’s first miracle was manifested at a wedding (Jn. 2:1-11).
As we all know, at the wedding feast in Cana, when the wine ran out, the Lord was asked to do something by his beloved mother, to which He did, in spectacular fashion! At His instruction the servants of the wedding party filled six stone jars with water, and then poured out the finest wine. One can imagine the astonishment of the master of the feast when he tasted the wine and exclaimed, “Every man at the beginning sets out the good wine, and when the guests have well drunk, then the inferior. You have kept the good wine until now!” (vs. 10).
The miracle at this wedding – of the water turned to wine – expresses a theological principle about marriage; that as good as things are, even better things are yet to come. For what was shared at the wedding in Cana (and in every wedding) was the joyful and festive wine of humanity’s best intentions and desires. Yet this wine as we know, ran out, just like any human endeavour (regardless of its good desires and intentions) being prone to bad days, broken circumstances, and selfishness. But by God’s grace, what the Lord offered – and still offers at every wedding – was that of Himself – Love; for as St. John notes in his epistle “God is love” (1 Jn. 4:8). It is Himself that He changes the water of our finite and vacillating love, into the eternal and everlasting love of a new covenant – “the good wine.”
The challenge that now lies before Evan and Anya (and all married couples) is to see something better than their wedding as being “best day of their life”. For they will have those bad days, broken circumstances, and selfish moments, that will make it seem like the wine they shared in the common cup was as tasteless as water, or worse, like a rancid and bitter imitation of what was once festive and joyful.
But if Evan and Anya (and all married couples), with faith and love, strive to recognise the abiding presence of the Lord offered to them on their special day, and on each successive anniversary, and for that matter, in every day of their lives, it will be an even more bountiful and vigorous affirmation and witness of their love for each other and the world around them. For what they participated in at their wedding is truly holy, divine and eternal; transforming every aspect of their life from the inferior into the perfect, and the finite into the eternal. Indeed their shared love will be like that rich and strong “good wine” which the Lord offered in Cana, and even offers now. The wonder and miracle is that this wine will not only never run out, but like their sacrificial love, become unbelievably richer and stronger until the end of the ages!
May God grant Evan and Anya many blessed years as they celebrate “the best way to start their life!”