It wasn't about the white dress, the flowers, the music, the food. It wasn't about family or friends. It was hardly even about the two of us, though our wedding was the occasion for celebration. To my husband and I, it was all about God, forgiveness, and what was done for us, not by us.
The dress was a special blessing, though, as it had itself just months before seen its fiftieth year; and for me it was free. The dress was Garth's grandmother's. After looking at her wedding album on her's and her husband's fiftieth wedding anniversary, she heard that I had swooned over the dress and suggested that it could be made to look modern with a few tweaks. A month later, when her grandson proposed to me, she stopped by unexpectedly and dropped it off. A beautiful lace dress the likes of which I had never even dreamed of, preserved perfectly after fifty years, was put on my body lovingly by my now sister-in-law. It fit perfectly.
After quite a few moderations in under six months' time, it was quite uniquely beautiful, certainly one-of-a-kind, and I felt terribly undeserving of it.
During our engagement, my husband and I were both attending the same college. In my British literature class we discussed Queen Victoria I for a few days. I learned at this time the real reason the bride wears white, or how it started as a trend, anyway, which had less to do with chastity than sheer virtue. Women back in Queen Victoria I's time would wear elaborately beautiful dresses filled with color to show their social/economic status. Queen Victoria, as a bride, wore white to show she was frugal, as England was in the midst of economic crisis. Talk about irony! Today, that famed white dress is the most expensive dress most women will ever wear. This knowledge really changed my perspective.
So why then is this dress perceived today as a vision of purity? Well, it is not completely off-base, though maybe twisted a bit by our society. Actually, it may just be a tradition that the bride be perceived as pure, emphasized in weddings today by the unblemished white of a wedding dress.
We've all heard the jokes when certain "undeserving" women wear white on their wedding day. We may laugh, but there is a different way we could look at it. A way that shows us far deeper and broader the implications of marriage, and a demonstration of God's love and forgiveness.
This revelation came over me one day when I was reading Ephesians 5. Starting at verse 25, Paul is admonishing men to love their wives "as Christ loved the church" so that, "he might sanctify her, having cleansed her by the washing of water with the word, so that he might present the church to himself in splendor, without spot or wrinkle or any such thing, that she might be holy and without blemish." Ephesians 5:26-27 (ESV, emphasis added).
Now, I had read this passage plenty of times before, but on that particular day, I teared up. It dawned on me that the purity of the bride is not dependent on the color of the wedding dress, but the concept of the convent act of marriage that is significant. At the moment of the covenant it does not matter what has happened in the woman's past, who she was before, or what sins she has committed. What matters is the act of committing herself to one man for the rest of her life, and his intent toward her. That sanctifies her. She becomes a radiant example of what we are to Christ, and in that moment, she is pure.
Men, I would admonish you to treat your wives (present, future, or unknown) in a way that makes her a respectable person, so that no one can say a bad word about her. This is how Christ demonstrates His love for the church, and our human act of marriage is a significant demonstration of that covenant; that love. A woman forgiven of her past wrongs by a man who chooses to love her unconditionally is a woman worthy of being presented in splendor; holy and without blemish.
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