The pandemic’s impact on weddings: Three biblical words of hope

My wife and I will celebrate our fortieth wedding
anniversary this year. (Just typing those words makes me feel older than I did
before I wrote them.) But I remember our wedding as if it were last year.
Events that change your life stay with you all of your life.

I make this point in light of the impact of the coronavirus pandemic on weddings around the world. Nearly 350,000 US weddings and more than 600,000 international weddings were set to take place in April and May.

Couples can still get married as scheduled but with very few people in attendance, or they can postpone the event for months or longer. This dilemma has major impacts on vendors, couples with aging family members, those who wish to start a family soon, and couples who lose their jobs and cannot afford to finance the celebration they planned.

In these days of deep discouragement, perhaps a story can
help.

Three biblical words of hope

John 2 tells us of Jesus’ first recorded miracle. He was
invited to a wedding in Cana of Galilee along with his disciples. However,
“the wine ran out” (v. 3). This was a catastrophe of far larger
significance than might meet the eye today.

In their culture, weddings were arranged years in advance.
Families in their small, typically impoverished villages saved for many years
for this great celebration. Everyone was invited. And in a day when drinking
water was scarce and unreliable, wine was essential. For the wine to run out
would be a grave embarrassment for the family, a failure that would forever
mark the couple and their wedding.

So Jesus’ mother appealed to her son for help. You know what
happened: he instructed the servants to fill six stone jars to the brim with
water, then draw some out and bring it to the “master of the feast”
(a kind of wedding planner who was leading the event). By turning water into
wine, our Lord saved the celebration.

What can we learn from this miracle?

One: Jesus loves…