Love Never Fails

I presided over a wedding this past weekend.  I saw tears, and laughter and celebration.  I saw love and joy and happiness.  My heart always goes out to the couple who are getting married, who are beginning their lives together.  And my heart goes out to their parents who see a wedding not only as a beginning, but as an end; an end that had its beginning at their own wedding; an end that had its beginning in the birth of their son or daughter; an end that began when they brought their newborn child home to live and be raised by them.

The wedding day is also the end of a year of planning and sleepless nights full of checklists and phone calls, hoping that something important has not been forgotten.  Jesus performed his first miracle at a wedding in the town of Cana in response to an important detail being neglected- the wine ran short.  At the request of his mother, Jesus turned 6 pots of water into 160 gallons of fine wine.

Unfortunately, such miracles are not a regular occurrence at most weddings.  So, weddings require courage, patience, fortitude and plenty of planning.  But weddings also require faith; faith that the weather will be good; faith that the flowers will arrive; faith that the slide presentation at the rehearsal dinner will work; faith that everyone at the rehearsal after-party will be at the wedding; faith that the wedding planner really knows what she is doing and can bring all the details together at the appointed time; faith that the minister can remember the small changes made to the ceremony at the rehearsal.

But, beyond and higher than faith, at every wedding there must be love.  In 1 Corinthians 13, Paul says that love never fails.  In a wedding, if love runs as the common thread through all of the details, neither the weather, nor the flowers, nor any of the other problems that may arise will matter much.

This past weekend, I was a witness to such love- the love between two people that transcended all of the details and problems that any wedding presents.  And when the ceremony was over and the couple kissed, I knew we were seeing something eternal; a beginning and an end united by love.