May 19, 2018
The contrast between ideal and reality played out all across the country today. The majesty and pageantry of a royal wedding was juxtaposed against the gritty ugliness of another school shooting. We seem to have a strange fascination with both the glory and the brutality of life, yearning for the one, and recoiling from the other.
Harry and Meghan’s wedding reflects a longing we all have for beauty, glory, and love; for that which lifts us to God in whose image we are created, while the events that unfolded in Texas remind us all too well of how far short of that image we have fallen. While there will be some who decry the extravagance of the British monarchy, the crowds present and those who watched via media reveal the breadth of that longing. The shooting exposes both the depth of human depravity and the rift in our country over how to deal with that which as a society we have denied even exists, viz. Sin.
I am thankful for reminders of glory, the examples of beauty, craftsmanship, and creativity seen in St. George’s chapel, Windsor Castle, and the myriad of people and preparation that was invested in the royal wedding. Pomp and ceremony still have their place, perhaps an even more important place in a world so wounded that murder and mayhem have become almost a staple of ordinary life. Perhaps the wedding was only a momentary diversion, but if so, it was a welcome departure from the daily tragedies that darken and pollute ordinary life. I am grateful tonight for this reminder of the glory that awaits the coming marriage of the Bride. It will be a day far surpassing the beauty of this royal union.
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