A Church, A School, and A Wedding

Heidi and I decided to get married in a vineyard—an active winery that makes quality wine. The sermon of the wedding ceremony included some messaging around Jesus’ very first miracle of turning water into wine and we participated in our very first communion together as a married couple—in front of a whole “host of witnesses.”

During our dating and engagement, there were two important groups we found ourselves connected to most of the time—our church and our school. Although there was much happiness and joy, both communities also had experienced some significant brokenness and sadness. Our church had just recently gone through a “split” and our school was going through some difficult personnel changes that were not pretty. In short—there was pain and there was hurt.

We didn’t overthink the decision to invite everyone in our church to our wedding—we just did it. We didn’t overthink inviting a large percentage of our school community (mostly staff)—we just did it.

What happened over the course of the four to six hours that constituted our wedding day (ceremony, dinner, and dancing), I believe was completely God ordained—and solidified my faith in a God who gives us glimpses of His Glory to call us closer to Him. That wedding day—our wedding day—we experienced this.

As a couple of broken communities, we partook in a feast together. We sat down together at the table and put aside our issues. Yes, there were certainly issues, but we parked them at the door (or at the trellis) and we laughed, we cried, we ate good food, and we sat outside in the beauty of God’s creation and we experienced the pureness of God’s goodness. We then transitioned into a night of dancing and we all danced together, often with each other and more often in large groups—and we laughed some more. Of course, by and large, Heidi and I were mostly thinking about ourselves, especially me (we were newlyweds after all!), and we did have a fun time even though not all of it was completely perfect. But we were mostly oblivious to the glimpse of Glory that I had mentioned above. God uses earthly experiences to grant us glimpses of His Glory and coming to a feast is one of those experiences, which is why “The Table” or “The Feast” is an important biblical metaphor that carries important messaging  we continue to experience in our everyday lives. He desires us and our communities to be whole, but our sin messes this up. We all long for wholeness and when we get these glimpses…it draws us closer to Him.

Heidi and I had the opportunity recently to celebrate a special anniversary (15 years) and we reminisced a little bit about that day…but we also took stock in our lives today…and we did this over the breaking of bread and wine, because it helps us experience just a little more glimpses of His Glory.