What Does "I Do" Mean?

We are in that season of the year when many young people schedule marriage ceremonies. Instinctively we treat these ceremonies as happy and festive occasions. Often no expense is spared in making the entire event as memorable as possible. But, is there lasting significance in the ritual?

Marriage has become one of the most precarious endeavors of ordinary human experience. Roughly half of all the marriages which will take place this Spring will end in divorce. That means an incredible amount of heartache and perhaps a life-time of emotional and financial baggage. Which necessarily leads to the question, "Do we really understand what marriage is"?

Marriage is a Divine institution, not a social invention. Genesis 2:22 - "Then the rib which the Lord God had taken from man He made into a woman, and He brought her to the man." This was a very purposeful act by the Creator. His design from the beginning was that mankind would be male and female commencing with one solitary couple—a married couple. God required that this would be the premiere of all human relationships: Genesis 2:24 - "Therefore a man shall leave his father and mother and be joined to his wife, and they shall become one flesh". God also required that this union would last till death: Matthew 19:6 - "So then, they are no longer two but one flesh. Therefore what God has joined together, let not man separate".

Traditional ceremonies reflect this Divine order, though it is rarely understood today. The father walks his daughter down the aisle and gives her hand to the groom as an statement of the transfer of loving God-like headship, with its lofty responsibilities, from the parents to the husband. The bride in letting go of Dad's arm and grasping her grooms is pledging loving submission to this new God-given head. The groom in taking the bride's arm is pledging to love her and care for her with sensitivity and self-sacrifice for the rest of his life. The couple exchange vows as a demonstration of the covenant nature of marriage. Thereby they pledge themselves to each other and to the solemn duties of building a family "till death part us."

The holy nature of marriage and the holy will of God are still reflected in our ceremonies; but, how many really care? How many couples seriously purpose to obey God and form a lasting, loving, and righteous union? A large portion of the chaos and pain in our society are due to fractured marriages and to the children who must live with the burden of those fractures. Surely it past time that those who marry and those who perform marriages give more serious heed to the implications of saying "I do".