Dr Bruce Manners on what really matters at a royal wedding
Dr Bruce Manners
Senior minister
Avondale College Seventh-day Adventist Church
What a wedding!
In case you’ve been visiting another planet, Prince William and Catherine Middleton married this past Friday. Estimates are that while one million people gathered in London, about two billion elsewhere watched the wedding. That’s almost 30 per cent of the world’s population.
How to describe the wedding: like a fairytale—the prince marries a commoner, a beautiful commoner becomes a princess, the pomp, the ceremony, the horsedrawn carriage; the only thing missing: a glass slipper.
The fascination with the insignificant: high. Who made the dress? The kiss, too short? The second, better? And did you know Catherine is Britain’s oldest royal bride.
The ceremony was openly Christian. The hymns, the Scripture readings, the sermon and the prayers gave that away. And for some reason the prayers were in Elizabethan or King James English, which added an olde world feel.
The depth of the invitation for God to be a part of the marriage was noticeable.
This was a memorable wedding, but in another sense it was no different to many other weddings. At its core were two people standing before God and family, and committing themselves to each other.
No matter how impressive the ceremony, how royal the blood, how popular the telecast, it comes back to the bride and the groom and their commitment to each other.
Nothing else matters—not really.
The depth of the commitment will be tested. Any marriage does that. For William and Catherine, the degree of difficulty is increased because they live their lives in public and often in the glare of the media.
Let’s hope and pray William and Catherine can keep their minds on what really matters.
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