"FINISH, THEN, THY NEW CREATION!"

I recently served at a wedding during which I experienced a moment of profound beauty at the intersection of a well-chosen hymn and a wedding coordinator who deeply understands the liturgy. The bridal processional was set to Wesley’s “Love Divine, All Loves Excelling.” The paces of the ministers, the groomsmen, the bridesmaids, the flower girl all conspired in such a way that when the doors opened for the bride to enter the nave, the first line of the final verse and its accompanying descant filled the whole space: “Finish, then, thy new creation; pure and spotless let us be!” I hope to share this experience here through some of the remarks from the homily and thoughts from a follow-up conversation with Bishop Scarlett.

Weddings tend to have a great deal of commotion, and even, God forbid, controversy! What with timelines, vendors, and overlapping family systems—it’s easy to be distracted, especially if you’re the bride and groom. But this is where St. Paul comes to the rescue. Meditating on Jesus’ words, he sees in Christian marriage a redemption and a hallowing of that marriage from the beginning, a way of life with a unique freedom to proclaim the Gospel of peace. He sees an image of Eden, the Man and the Woman divided as two persons and then brought together in a union without loss of that distinctness. In that marriage was a call to celebrate life, as new and different persons were to be born from that union, growing the family’s complexity while manifesting their essential unity. In this, humanity in Eden was called to be the icon of God the Trinity.

Any true icon, though, balances a ponderous likeness and a definite unlikeness. No family ever manifests the full mystery of God, and yet they are called to point continually beyond themselves to Him, drawing creation’s vision to see the Creator. Inasmuch as they are like God to Creation they are like royalty, and insofar as they are those who gather and commend Creation to God they are like  priests. But the Man and the Woman abdicated this calling. Through the Fall, they became to the Creation totems of separateness and false power, vying for supremacy over the other. To God they became exiles and prodigals, withholding and expending the creation for themselves. They were no longer icons but idols, no longer royalty but tyrants, and no longer priests but charlatans. 

Yet all was not lost. In the fullness of time: redemption of the human calling came through Jesus by the Virgin Mary. St. Paul sees in marriage the ministry of reconciliation, the power and mystery of Jesus’ yes to the Cross and of Mary’s humble and powerful yes in gifting her Son to His Passion. The phrase “as Christ loved the Church” always takes us back to the foot of the Cross, to life given and received through sacrifice. The old human story of withholding is healed by self-gift and costly love. Marriage is a sign of our first family’s redemption by the new Adam with the new Eve at the Cross, from whom a new, holy, and undivided family is born. 

When the anxiousness is put away, though, and we see Jesus again as the center of the wedding liturgy, He heals our vision to see a real marriage. We cease to see mere ceremony and instead behold a retelling of the story of salvation, a living drama of resurrection. We see the bride begin her journey from the baptismal font, where life in Christ begins, her eyes fixed on the bridegroom. He goes ahead of her to make the way for her, that she may process in triumph and be received in love. Together, they enter the sanctuary to be consecrated to a life that no earthly power can bestow. The bride and bridegroom come from among the congregation—they are one with them, but they must, for now, break with them, turning away so as to direct their people’s sight to God beyond them. They walk past where good confessions go forth and where reconciliation is restored, they return to where they were confirmed and received the Spirit, walk upon and past where our mortal remains return at our end. They kneel where ordinands prostrate in worship to give up their old lives, and from which they arise with their mission. They are present to the place where the life of the risen and ascended Christ becomes present in the sacramental life of His Church.

By the Holy Spirit, by the prayer of the Church, and by their vows--the two are transfigured, revealed as something they weren’t before. They stand like ministers of the sanctuary, configured again to the priestly character of redeemed humanity, bearing witness to and offering their prayers in the celebration of the Eucharist. Having received new life from God in holy communion, having been nourished and blessed for their mission, they are turned toward and honored by us all in joy and reverence--configured as at a coronation to the likeness of royalty. And yet--this is just the start. They are then sent to bear the fruit of this new life among their people. They are given as a gift back to the congregation in a ministry to the Church and to the world.

And so it shall be until the End of all things calls us to His side. All false visions shall pass away and what will remain is that which we have seen, through a glass darkly, in the brightness of moments like these. Come, Lord Jesus: amen!

Finish, then, thy new creation; 
true and spotless let us be.
Let us see thy great salvation 
perfectly restored in thee.
Changed from glory into glory, 
till in heav’n we take our place,
till we cast our crowns before thee, 
lost in wonder, love and praise.

--

“Love Divine, All Loves Excelling,” Charles Wesley