Who Then Is This?

Who then is this?
Blazing fire
Fiery holiness, furious righteousness, fearsome wrathfulness
I fall to my knees, terrified

Who then is this?
Pink and plump cheeks
Adored innocence, admired humanness, alighted peacefulness
I fall to my knees, hopeful


Who then is this?
Straight and strong
Commanding wind and water, disease and demons
I fall to my knees, wondering

Who then is this?
Cross hammered
Bloodied and betrayed, accused and abandoned
I fall to my knees, ashamed

Who then is this?
Stone-rolling satisfaction
Arisen accomplishment, just justifier
I fall to my knees, accepted

The Most Unusual Wedding I Never Performed

When I was a young pastor I naively thought that the couples who asked me to officiate at their weddings would be mainly young, godly people who were raised in the church and who grew up attending Awana and the youth group. I figured they would be starry-eyed virgins with Scriptural values and godly examples from their own intact families of origin.

I learned pretty quickly that performing a wedding as a Christian pastor is complicated, and that people’s lives are often very broken. Sometimes it’s hard to know how to do the right thing. Especially if you care more about pleasing God than about pleasing people.

Rob and Rachel (not their real names) were an attractive couple in their early 30’s who began attending our church a few years ago. He had worked for a Christian non-profit agency in another state, and she was a personal trainer at a local gym.