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Pastor · Sunday Schedule · FBC
News
2003
From the Pastor
THE FATHER OF THE BRIDE
A rolled up aisle runner sits in the corner of the living room waiting to be taken over to the church later in the week. Ribbons and bows from shower gifts are bundled together on a chair in the dining room. A note from the caterer and a late response card have been temporally left on the kitchen table. There isn’t a room in the house that doesn’t have some evidence that soon, very soon, a wedding is about to occur in our family and for the one and only time in my life I am going to be, the Father of the Bride.
How many times as a pastor have I stood at the front of the sanctuary and watched brides come down the aisle escorted on the arm of their fathers. I hardly noticed the fathers and that is as it should be. Nobody should be looking at the father. All eyes should be on the bride.
I am going to both escort my daughter down the aisle as her father and officiate at the ceremony as pastor. There are details to be worked out but I think my daughter is most concerned whether or not I will be able to keep my composure. I think, however, as long as I can focus on those details I won’t fall too far into my heart where I might become choked with emotion unable to complete a sentence.
It is the same way I am trying to write this article. I am skirting the deep well spring of emotions that lay just beneath the surface. There are feelings and thoughts so personal and private the only way they can be shared is in public ceremonies that have well defined boundaries that can carry the weight of these emotions without letting them overtake us.
Inside my heart is so much gratitude, so much love that I need a veil to somewhat cover my feelings, like Moses covering his face when he returned from his encounter with God on Mt. Sinai...and I am only the father of the bride. I know it is even more so for the bride and groom.
It is not only that we bring the high moments of our life to the church to be blessed by God but in the church we find a means of expressing them which makes it possible for others to share in these moments while at the same time allowing what is most private and personal to remain so.
As father of the bride I am so grateful God’s house is an open and welcoming place for this transitional period in our lives. It not only blesses the love between two people but helps the parents of the bride and groom move into a new relationship with their son or daughter. It is both a letting go and a welcoming of a new member into the family.
All through our life there are these transitional periods, some filled with bliss as at a wedding or infant dedication and others are born of grief but thank God never must they be entered into either alone or without in some way in the church, knowing God is there with us, leading us from one way of being to another. God leads us, God makes all things possible.
As father of the bride there is one last thing I would like to say. In October I marked my 17th anniversary as pastor of First Baptist. My daughter will be married October 25. This means you have been her church and our family’s church for 17 years. I thank you for all those years in which you have been for my family a community of faith and pray my daughter and her husband will find a church home in Louisville where they will live that will mirror the same generosity and love you have given to our family. My daughter’s wedding will be small, including only relatives and a very few close friends of the bride and groom, but I can assure you, inside the sanctuary and inside our hearts you will be with us.
Dr. David W. Andersen
           
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