I have been invited to co-officiate the wedding of Emily Crutcher and Adam Hall at Duke Chapel on Saturday, February 12th – Lord willing. This will be my first wedding of 2022, and I am excited because Emily is about as kind a soul as one could ever meet, and she has held true to remaining part of our community though she relocated to North Carolina nearly 5 years ago.
There is something incredibly miraculous and hopeful about a wedding, whether it is a simple affair with bride, groom, a couple of witnesses, and officiant or includes dozen of bridesmaids, groomsmen, family, friends, and guests (at least pre-Covid)—all that investment of time, effort, energy, and money to make one day so special.
But we know that it’s about more than a single day, don’t we? Regardless of the size, bells and whistles, or this or that, we know that the wedding and marriage initiate a new way of life and being, a different kind of investment based on a measure of mutual love, honor, respect, and commitment – best case scenario.
The vows themselves represent the unimaginable—till death do us part, for better or worse, richer or poorer, sickness and in health—for no one stands at the altar able to imagine the full magnitude of such extremes and what they might mean down the road.
At his mother’s prompting, Jesus chose to perform his first public miracle at a wedding in Cana of Galilee by turning water into wine. There are all kinds of signs and symbolisms, of course, but foremost among them is the Spirit’s ability to transform something simple and ordinary into something new and extraordinary that is useful and necessary for the moment at hand. That’s pretty much what happens in the sacraments of marriage, baptism, Holy Communion, and our lives everyday if we allow it.
How might you allow God to initiate something new and transformative in your life in this new year—as miraculous as turning ordinary water into the very best wine fitting for our time and place?
Grace and peace,
Pastor Cathy