Happy 5th Anniversary, Seth and Alexa! June 20th

Like Aragon and Arwen, your love story is sweet. Sweeter, really. You looked to the Lord, Jesus Christ, for the way you should go and you continue your quest to honor Him in all you do.
Here's to another 5 years, and another, and another! May you shine with unveiled faces, reflecting the knowledge of Christ, for you are being transformed into his likeness with ever-increasing glory.

You're ceremony instructed us all in what life and marriage are all about, and so I publish selections from it here that we may all be reminded of these things.

Friends, we have been invited by Seth and Alexa not simply to be part
of their wedding today, but to enter into the world of “Story,” realizing
that this wedding is happening within a much bigger context, a context
that gives meaning to this ceremony, a context that thinking “mythically”
enables us to understand more clearly.
C.S. Lewis wrote that the value of great stories is that they restore a rich
significance to the mundane things of life we’re all-too-familiar with. The
central belief of our times is that there is no overarching story. Our own
small stories, the random days of our lives, are all we have. Tragedy still
brings us to tears, heroism still lifts our hearts—weddings still stir us
deeply—but there is no context for any of it.
But, as Frederick Buechner writes in Telling the Truth: The Gospel as a Fairy Tale:
This is a world of magic and mystery, of deep darkness and flickering
starlight. It is a world where terrible things happen and wonderful things
too. It is a world where goodness is pitted against evil, love against hate,
order against chaos, in a great struggle where often it is hard to be sure
who belongs to which side because appearances are endlessly deceptive.
Yet for all its confusion and wildness, it is a world where the battle goes
ultimately to the good, who live happily ever after, and where in the long
run everybody, good and evil alike, becomes known by his true name.
This is THE story. This is the story that not only happened “once upon a
time” but has kept on happening ever since and is happening still. This is
the story into which Seth and Alexa have been swept, together.

Jeff: Who has prepared Alexa to journey faithfully beside Seth, wherever
their road might lead?
Father: Her mother and I have. Father is seated.
Charge to the Couple (Jeff)
Exchange of Vows
Jeff: Do you, Seth, take Alexa to be your wedded wife, to have and to hold
from this day forward, for better or for worse, for richer or for poorer, in
good times and bad times, in sickness and in health, to love and to cherish,
till death do you part, according to God’s holy ordinance.
Seth: I do. Alexa, I love you, by the grace of God I love you, and I will
love you all of my life.
Jeff: Do you, Alexa, take Seth to be your wedded husband, to have and
to hold from this day forward, for better or for worse, for richer or for
poorer, in good times and bad times, in sickness and in health, to love and
to cherish, till death do you part, according to God’s holy ordinance?
Alexa: I do. Seth, I love you, by the grace of God I love you, and I will
love you all of my life.

“Behold, thou art fair, my love, there is no spot in thee?”

No –

as Elisabeth Elliot wrote, instead consider this a special gift of vision,
the power to see for a little while what God meant when He made that
person. You’ll find, especially after marriage, that this person is in fact a
sinner, and has flaws you never suspected. But try to remember then what
the vision showed you. Thank God for it, and treat each other with the sort of
respect due one who will some day manifest most gloriously the image of God.

Exchange of Rings
Jeff: Seth, who is this woman? What is your pledge to her?
Seth: You, Alexa, bear the image of God’s beauty. With this ring, I pledge
to always affirm and to always look for that beauty, respecting you as one
made in the image of God.

Jeff: Alexa, who is this man? What is your promise to him?
Alexa: You, Seth, bear the image of God’s strength. With this ring, I
pledge to always affirm and to always trust in that strength, respecting you
as one made in the image of God.

Official Pronouncement (Jeff)
Now, by the authority committed unto me as a Minister of the Gospel,
I declare that Seth and Alexa are husband and wife, according to the
ordinance of God and the law of the Commonwealth of Pennsylvania, in
the name of the Father, and of the Son, and of the Holy Spirit.
May you shine with unveiled faces, reflecting the knowledge of Christ, for
you are being transformed into his likeness with ever-increasing glory.
You may now kiss your bride’s unveiled face.

Lifting of Veil and Kiss
Jeff: I now present to you Mr. and Mrs. Seth Andrzejewski.

Reading: A World at War (Jerry)
Seth and Alexa, the world in which you will carry your love is a world at war.
You have an Enemy, the Enemy who rebelled against God and is set on
destroying His works. This Enemy is determined to prevent you from
becoming who God designed you to be. He is bent on destroying your
trust in God’s goodness. He would love to dash your big dreams and to
prevent you from getting your hopes up. And he would begin by blinding you
altogether to the truth that this world is at war—for unless you recognize this war as the context of your days, you will misinterpret and misunderstand life, suffering, and God’s ultimate, loving plan.
So, as Ephesians 5:14-16 says, “Wake up... Be very careful how you
live...because the days are evil.” Keep watch, for there is a God-given
glory to your lives and love that your Enemy fears, and he is hell-bent on
destroying that glory before you act on it.
The Enemy fears you, Seth and Alexa. He fears what you may become.

Charge to the Fellowship (Jeff)
Jeff: But you cannot fight this battle alone. God has chosen you for one
another. Evil will hunt you. And so a fellowship must protect you.
Who will go with Seth and Alexa? Who will fight for them?
Andrew: We will.
Rachel: Speaking on behalf of the bride and groom’s friends and family...
Andrew: ...for as long as our part in their story lasts.
Jeff: Will you then please pray for the bride and the groom, on behalf of
the fellowship gathered here?

Closing Words: The King Will Return (Jerry)
A story is only as good as its ending. If for all practical purposes we
believe that this life and even the greatness of earthly love is our best shot
at happiness, we will place on this world a burden that it was never meant
to bear.
This a world at war, and even the best human life is still full of
unspeakable sadness. Even if we manage to escape some of the bigger
tragedies (and few of us do), life rarely meets our expectations. When
we do get a taste of what we really long for, it never lasts. Every vacation
eventually comes to an end. Friends move away. Even the most blissful
human love leaves the best of us wanting.
We go through life constantly reaching for something more. But it is
this “reaching” that gives us hope, for, as C.S. Lewis writes, “Creatures
are not born with desires unless satisfaction for those desires exists. If I
find in myself a desire which no experience in this world can satisfy, the
most probable explanation is that I was made for another world. Probably
earthly pleasures were never meant to satisfy it, but only to arouse it, to
suggest the real thing.”
We long to be complete. We long for the war to be over. We long for a
Happily Ever After. Our hearts reach for these, and God has promised
all of them, saying, “Behold! I will make all things new.” The ending is
written on our hearts. And because we know the ending, we can be free to
enjoy the story. Because we know the ending, we can truly live, today, free
to enjoy this life and love for what it is. It is a shadow—and sometimes a
beautiful one, but only a shadow—of something even greater and better
that is yet to come.
So let today be, as God intended it to be, a shadow of the day our King
returns, bringing the war to an end, and the “engagement” of Christ to the
church to consummation. The setting for that day will be a great party—
the wedding feast of the King.
There will be dancing. There will be feasting. It will be THE celebration.

Alexa: “The Spirit and the bride say, “Come!”
Seth: And let him who hears say, “Come!”
Jeff: He who testifies to these things says, “Yes, I am coming soon.” Amen.
Come, Lord Jesus.”