Showing posts with label weddings. Show all posts
Showing posts with label weddings. Show all posts

Monday, January 10, 2011

Mississippi Romeo fears he is jilted by his Juliet


Years ago, a girl from a wealthy family in Natchez, Mississippi, fell in love with a poor boy from the country. Their families consented to a wedding, albeit reluctantly, when the boy and girl persisted in professing their passion for one another.
Since the wealthy bride's family was embarrassed to have the country bumpkin in their city church, they decided to have the wedding at the rural church of the groom. When the Saturday of the wedding arrived, people began to fill the pews of the little house of worship. The groom's side, that is. The bride's side remained empty. No family of the bride, and no bride.
The organist played happy wedding music in anticipation of a celebration that appeared to be over before it began. The preacher looked at the forlorn face of the groom as the appointed hour came and went. The minister had never felt so sorry for a fellow in all of his days. "That girl ain't coming," the preacher thought. "Her family has talked her out of it."
Just as they were about to give up and send everybody home, a cloud of dust arose on the horizon. It was the bride and her family, rushing in, all out of breath, dressed for the wedding. The preacher proceeded to lead the smiling groom and his sweaty, breathless bride in a quick exchange of “I do.”
At the reception, they learned the rest of the story from the father of the bride. It seems that the bride's wedding dress was at the dry cleaners, and when they went to pick it up that Saturday morning, the cleaners was closed. The father of the bride had to make frantic phone calls and demand that the owner of the cleaners open up on his day off. After finally fitting the dress on the frantic bride, they set out into the countryside to find the groom's little church, only to get lost. This was long before the days of cell phones and GPS.
Imagine the joy of the bride when she saw the little church at the end of the gravel road. Imagine the joy of the groom when he saw his bride riding up in a cloud of dust. Yet none of that can compare with the joy that the church, the "bride of Christ" will have when we see our Lord Jesus coming to take us up to heaven!
"Let us rejoice and exult, and give him the glory, for the marriage of the Lamb has come, and his bride has made herself ready" (Revelation 19:7, ESV).
You might think that I made up this amazing story, but I did not. The preacher who performed the wedding tells me it really happened. What is even more amazing is that the marriage of Jesus, the Lamb of God, and the church, the Bride of Christ, is really going to happen, too. Will you be there?


(Copyright 2011 by Bob Rogers.
Email: brogers@fbcrincon.com.)

Wednesday, May 30, 2007

The Unity Candle Crisis


The month of June is known as the beginning of the hurricane season and the height of the wedding season (not that the two are necessarily related).
One wedding that I conducted, while not stormy. was nearly disunified.
The bride had already come down the aisle. The vows had begun. However, the wedding director was horrified, because the unity candle had not been prepared.
If you are not familiar with a unity candle, it is a candelabra with a large center candle and two smaller candles on each side. The custom is for the bride's mother and groom's mother to light each of the smaller candles before the service. After the bride and groom exchange vows and rings, they use the two small candles to light the large center candle, representing the coming together of two families to make one. The only problem was that the two smaller candles were not lit before the service began.
The wedding director had little time to decide what to do. Plan A would be to walk up to the candelabra, which was beside the minister, and say to the wedding party, "Excuse me, could you pause right there at 'for better or worse' and let me light these candles before things do get worse?" No, she decided that plan A was too much of a distraction.
So she activated plan B.
The wedding director grabbed a candle lighter and ran upstairs to the second floor level behind the pulpit area, looking for an entrance to the choir loft. Since this was not her home church, she was not familiar with the building. Several times she opened doors to closets. She could hear the vows continue, and she knew that if she did not hurry, soon the couple would be up a candle without a lighter. Finally, she found a door from the second floor to the stairway that descended to the choir loft. She descended the stairs and slowly opened the door to the choir loft and motioned to the photographer. He was sitting on the floor behind the choir railing, taking pictures by a remote control of various cameras that he was monitoring. He was out of view of the congregation, but he was right there on the other side of the choir railing from the unity candle.
The photographer turned white as a sheet when he saw a woman lying on her stomach, peering out of a crack in the door to the choir loft, poking a stick at him. But he caught on quickly.
I was unaware that any of this was going on. All I remember is that as the groom was placing the ring on the bride's finger, out of the corner of my left eye I noticed a person rise up from behind the choir railing, light each of the two side candles, and then disappear again behind the choir railing. I didn't even know there was a crisis, but the photographer came to the rescue, just in the nick of time!
God likes to show up just in time. When the Israelites crossed the Jordan River, God waited until their feet were in the water before He opened dry ground before them (Joshua 3:15-16). Even Jesus Himself showed up just in time. The Bible says, "But when the right time came, God sent his Son, born of a woman..." (Galatians 4:4, New Living Translation). God is always on time; He's never too early and never too late. Isn't it time that you trusted in Him?
Copyright 2007 by Bob Rogers.