Two Wedding Aisles To Walk Down

Second best day of my life

Two Brides: Two Wedding Aisles

This is a reminder for young Christian men who have young daughters. One day you may walk your daughter down the aisle. Perhaps you think about that day from time to time. I certainly did, and all the more as Sophie grew up. Perhaps you wonder what it will be like (second best day of my life, if you want to know, the best day being my own wedding day).

But young men, in light of having walked my only daughter down the aisle just two months ago, I want you to remember that even though you may – by God’s grace – be a father of a bride, you are even now, part of the Bride of Christ. One day you will be presented to the Bridegroom – Jesus – as part of his Bride – the church.  In a sense there are two wedding aisles to keep in mind.

Both truths matter. Both truths shape you.

And that means that leaning into the latter truth, committing to living out the implications of that day, will help ensure that the former truth is even more special, if and when an earthly wedding day arrives. It will mean living in such a way now for your eternal Bride Groom, that when the day comes then to be the father of the bride, you can do so with godly thankfulness and honour.

Now, granted, not everyone gets married, and there are good and godly reasons why your daughter/s might remain single including ministry decisions and – yes – choice! But in terms of percentages, it is more likely your daughters will marry at some stage, particularly if they are Christian women.

So if they should marry, then make sure you, as their father, reach that day in good shape yourself. Make sure that your eye is on the day that you are part of the Bride, not simply the father of the bride.

Now I don’t necessarily mean physically good shape. Though there is benefit in that. Not much point becoming worn out before your time and before you have grandchildren! Not much point wheezing your way down the aisle through bad diet and exercise decisions. Keep physically fit!

But most of all, keep spiritually fit over the next couple of busy decades. Keep spiritually fit with all of the tiredness, the tantrums, the school “have-to’s”, the holiday disappointments, the fall-into-bed-only-to-get-up-to-clean-the-vomit-again moments.

Keep spiritually fit for your wife and her godliness. Love her and model that love to your children, and show what forgiving each other looks like. Don’t triangulate your relationship with your wife through your children. Never speak down about her to them either.

Keep yourself from too often walking past that desk at work where that young woman who likes to have deeper conversations with you wants another chat. Be kind to her, but put a fence around the conversation.

Keep yourself from overlooking the illegal sign-offs on financial documents that cook the books just a little, even if your boss wants you to.

Keep yourself from ongoing bitterness with ex-friends or complex family relationships. Keep yourself from pursuing your own dreams at the cost of the financial, relational and spiritual health of your family.

Keep yourself from being bitter about God’s people, and seeking to jump church ship at every opportunity. When I was a pastor I often saw men in their fifties trawling their families from church to church. They would occasionally turn up at ours.

The look of  bored resignation in their childrens’ eyes at having to meet yet another group of young people, was telling. Telling and sad. Don’t do that to your family because of pride or restlessness.

Prepare For That Day

What’s that all got to do with your daughter’s wedding day, and walking her down the aisle? Well, it’s clear isn’t it, that weddings are the events where the decisions of our lives and the pathways we have walked down, coalesce and gather in intense and revealing ways. Weddings and funerals, actually.

So young men, let me assure you there’s a special joy in walking your daughter down the aisle having ensured, as far as it was possible for you, that you have no deep family or relational regrets. That you are spiritually and morally in good shape, and have taken steps over the course of your daughter’s younger years to be so and remain so. That you have not train wrecked your gospel witness and integrity.

No ungodly actions on your behalf that have ended or strained your marriage beyond repair, or resulted in deep estrangements from family members. That you have lived a godly life before God and before your family that, while not sinless, you have sought to submit to your own Bridegroom, who seeks for you to be spotlessly presented before Him on the final day.

Now I say this with only gratitude to God in my heart, but standing there with Sophie two months ago ready for that walk, my heart in my mouth, the thought flitted through my mind that this was a worthy way to close this chapter in our lives, as she and Cameron began another. For as I’ve neared sixty years of age, I know that this is not always the case with those in my own age and church cohort.

Sinful actions, betrayed relationships, broken marriages, by the time you are my age you will have seen it all. And while repentance comes, damage is often done. Young men, you don’t want to limp down the aisle with your daughter, so to speak, dragging regrets and bad decisions with you. Don’t reach that day unfit for purpose.

Consequences of Sin

Of course there is forgiveness of sin by the Lord, but so often the consequences create havoc. Of course there can be repair. It would not be the gospel after all if there was not. And of course many things are out of your hands.

Yet insofar as it is possible by you, be fit for purpose on that day. The ripples from a bad decision spread out seemingly forever. I remember that well in my own life growing up. My own father did not attend my wedding. He was invited, but the wreckage was too great. Even this week I read a public social media post from our one final estranged half-brother who lamented the absence of his father from his own birthdays.

I’ve written about my own experiences before, but I often look back at this photograph from my own wedding day to my lovely wife Jill, and feel his absence. Mind you, as I found out later, in the top of the picture just under the McDonald’s Golden Arches, my Dad, his second wife and his two boys are standing watching from afar.

I remember the grief of Dad not attending even though we invited him. We still loved him!  And I remember the desire almost thirty years ago to be the kind of man who would – if he ever had children – never have to refuse that invitation, or have it withheld, never have to consider whose face to turn away from if and when I walked my own daughter down an aisle.

Jill and I have been married thirty years next April. And I love her more than ever. Sure, there have been griefs and pains, as well as deep joys. Most of all there is a gratitude that God has kept us together and growing in love for each other. I spend a lot of time traveling these days, and there’s a deep conflict for me in this because as we age we want to spend more time together not less. Running my own consultancy is kinda fun, but it has a use-by-date because Jill is still the delight of my eyes and heart.

And then in a flash those thirty years went by! And I recall steadying myself as Sophie and I were about to start walking – with a wonderful cover of Nick Cave’s Ship Song playing as the processional.  Sophie looked beautiful of course. A little different, as her wedding day is only the second day I have ever seen her in make-up (the first being her school dance).

Even with my nerves though, mingled with the joy, I was struck by the spiritual reality of marriage, and the eternal marriage of the Lamb and his Bride. Even as the song soared and swelled, and as I gazed around the room, it was at that point that I drank deep of the significance of God’s vision for earthly marriage, and its template for the heavenly reality.

Incidentally, it was interesting that my non-Christian family members remarked afterwards that a Christian wedding kinda “hits different”.  I believe that is because young Christian couples, as Sophie and Cam are, who honour marriage, and honour each other before marriage, are reflecting something about marriage that the world though it shuns, somehow still yearns for. Go figure!

Lean Into Jesus

But back to my young men with daughters! I read and see a lot about the push-back among younger Christians against the crazy culture we live in. I see a return to more traditional roles in marriage, a deeper determination to be less like Boomers and Gen Xers in the ways they have done relationships and work life.

Well and good. But cultural determination will not keep your marriage intact. Thumbing your nose at society’s stupidity will not be the force that enables your own marriage to be strong.  Only a marriage grounded in King Jesus, and a marriage surrounded by others whose own lives – whether married or single – are grounded in King Jesus, will do that.

We may be intellectually strong enough to resist the cultural craziness. We may be well-informed enough  – or well-read enough –  to avoid the societal train crashes. But we are still sinful enough that we could train wreck our own lives, our marriages, our reputations, and even our faith, if we do not lean deeply into Jesus, stay fixed in his word. transparent before our friends, honest with our spouse, and aware of the responsibility that comes with raising a human created in the image of God.

I think the next thirty years will see the widening of the already growing gap between how Christians live their lives, and do their relationships and marriages, and how the world does. For all of the talk about a return to tradition, it will still be a small percentage of Westerners who trust in Jesus and live lives that honour him.

The key to maintaining your integrity will not be grit and effort alone. Sure, have some discipline and curtail your bad habits. Yet you simply have no idea what life will throw at you.

If you enter the challenges of the coming decades with a high hand, assuming you will, because of a return to more traditional ways among your cohort, dodge the bullets by willpower alone, then you are naive. Only a life grounded in Jesus and his gospel, committed to the last day and your presentation as part of the Church to him, will be enough.

Young man with young daughters, make sure that is you. Makes sure that in thirty years time you have lived the kind of life that is deeply aware that God is preparing his church to be a spotless Bride to present to the Bride Groom. There are no guarantees of course. We all know that life takes many twists and turns.

But the wisdom of Scripture and the hope of the gospel can be trusted. In looking to the last day and your presentation as part of the Bride to the enteral Bride Groom, my prayer is that you will reap the sweetl fruit of walking your own daughter down the aisle, with no stain or wrinkle of your own to hide, no disapproving or pained gaze to avert.

That will make for a joyful day indeed.