Weddings in the Winter
January 19, 2025
Many, many years ago, probably in my first year of ordained ministry, Rick and Marsha Nash came to me with a request. Marsha had a daughter who was set to get married, and as luck would have it, the groom was from DePauw.
Now since Rick was on the search committee that found me for the position in the church and because he and Marsha were just two incredibly nice, amazing people, it was a no-brainer. I said “yes” right away to walking with this young couple and to officiate their wedding.
I was excited. It was one of the first weddings I had the pleasure of officiating in my life, and there’s always something incredibly beautiful and life-giving about being that close to a couple as they say their vows to one another. It really is wonderfully unique. Plus, I’ve learned it gives me the chance to get to know the couple in a really special way, often times serving as both pastor and counselor as they get hurtled towards their big day! In case you didn’t know it, weddings can be stressful!
There’s a lot to coordinate.
Guest lists. The food. The decorations. The flowers.
Not to mention all the other stress and family drama that comes up.
It’s a little known secret among most of my pastor friends that I know that weddings are – especially big weddings – the most stressful type of service we know of.
Even when they’re small, … all of the emotions and stress and build up leading into the day makes it almost impossible to not become a huge stress ball.
Most of my energy goes towards just trying to keep things normal and calm, to be a “non-anxious presence” as the wisest of counselors will tell you.
Anyway, back to Marsha’s daughter and her wedding.
Frankly, I was so new to all of this pastoring stuff, I really didn’t even know what to expect. I wasn’t so much nervous for the couple as I was nervous for myself, worried that I’d botch something. Tell the couple to kiss in the wrong place. Forget to pronounce them as husband and wife. Or, do like I did at a wedding for a cousin of mine several years ago where I got her vows mixed up with his vows. Not the greatest moment.
And, mostly, I just wanted to make Rick and Marsha happy.
Rick was a character. Boy, was he a character. He grew up in Owensboro, Kentucky. But despite the blue-bloodedness of the territory, he did the unthinkable back in the early 60’s. He went across the state line to Indiana University to play baseball.
Eventually, he made it back to Owensboro, and as Rick himself would tell you, he lived his life with a great deal of freedom! Chasing good times, chasing parties, chasing fast cars, Rick lived “life to the full” you might say for most of his life.
But all of that started to change when he entered his 60’s. He met Marsha after his first marriage had come apart. And her faith started to wear off on her.
But what really got him was his dad’s funeral. This happened a few years before I met Rick. He was on the way to his dad’s funeral … riding along in a car right behind the hearse … when Rick had a heart-attack. A full on, take-you-out heart attack.
All he remembers is clutching his hand to his heart, and then the next thing he remembered was the paramedics standing over him … telling him to stay with them.
Yup, Rick Nash suffered a heart attack on the way to his dad’s funeral. Talk about a bad day.
But for Rick it was sort of a “new” day. A day he truly felt like God was speaking to him.
He realized Jesus was giving him another chance. He realized it was time for him to start giving back to people. He realized he wanted to use whatever years he had left to love God and love others.
And, boy, that’s exactly what Rick did.
When Anna and I moved across the country with the meager belongings we had but also our first born child who was only about three months old, Rick stepped up and stepped in.
He helped us move our furniture up to the second floor of an apartment building!
And, true to Rick Nash form, he made us dinner.
Rick loved to cook. And he was good at it. Southern cooking. Owensboro cooking. Which, if you know anything about Owensboro, means slow-cooked, smoked barbecue.
For one of our first dinners in our very dingy apartment in Owensboro, Kentucky, Rick dropped off a big aluminum tin full of smoked pulled pork with his own home-made bbq sauce, mashed potatoes, and green beans along with rolls.
Rick didn’t hold back.
But the best Rick Nash moment to me came a few years later when he and I went down to a missions conference at the Opry Land Hotel outside of Nashville.
The first night we got there, before the conference started, Rick insisted he and I go to this seafood buffet out by the Nashville airport.
Now, I don’t know about you, but seafood and Nashville, Tennessee are not two things I associate together!
Didn’t phase, Rick. Rick was insistent we go get seafood the night before the conference. So we did.
And I’ve never seen so much fried seafood in my entire life … or as wide a variety. Rick made sure I tried the Oysters Rockefeller. He piled his own plate full of Alaskan snow crab legs. And he made me try frog legs.
I could barely eat what was on my first plate. Rick must have had three plates.
But here’s the best part.
The next morning when I woke up to go to this mission’s conference, to hear about the various ways Jesus’ ministry was impacting the world and how we could get involved … Rick Nash couldn’t even fit into his shoes.
That’s right. He had managed to eat so much sodium and butter the night before that in the middle of the night, his feet had swollen about three times bigger than normal.
So, I’m getting ready in my little part of the hotel room, and Rick comes out of his part of the room … separated as it as by a little door …
And there he was … dressed in khakis and a dress shirt … hair slicked back as normal with his big, wide grin on his face … only to realize Rick Nash was wearing crocs … a crazy cream color at that.
He just looked at me sheepishly and said, “I can’t fit into my shoes.”
I just can’t. Oh, you can’t make this stuff up.
…
All that to say, I loved Rick Nash immensely. So when he and Marsha asked me to officiate at Marsha’s daughter’s wedding I was all on board.
Until I realized when precisely they wanted to get married … and where.
New Year’s Eve.
Okay. That part is kind of weird. Can’t say I remember any weddings around that time of year in my life.
But here was the real kicker. They wanted to get married at 5:30 pm on December 31st … outside in the courtyard at Brescia University in the heart of downtown Owensboro.
Now, Owensboro isn’t Alaska. It isn’t Siberia.
But even still, Owensboro ain’t usually warm in the winter. It’s typically pretty darn cold … and dark. By 5:30 pm it was going to feel like 9 pm, and when they told me about their wedding it was in July.
The odds of the weather being great for their wedding … slim to none.
The most likely scenario was that one of the first weddings I was going to officiate at was going to be a wedding where my hands would be shaking by the end of the service … and so would the bride’s and groom’s.
In all likelihood, there would be a cold wind blowing in the courtyard of Brescia University on New Year’s Eve at 5:30 pm.
…
Who has the audacity to plan a wedding in winter?
Even more, who has the audacity to plan an OUTSIDE wedding in winter?
Rick and Marsha Nash and their family that’s who.
But do you know who else has that kind of audacity?
Our God.
Our God who is always looking to do something inspiring especially in the moments when we start to feel like everything is coming off the rails.
…
This is the first miracle Jesus did, and I just love it. I’m sure you do too.
And we should.
I think there’s a reason why Jesus choose to make this his first miracle … his first statement.
…
Listen, sometimes life doesn’t break the way we want it to.
Sometimes life includes moments that leave us feeling absolutely diminished and discouraged.
Could you imagine how the family felt when they began to realize that they were going to run out of wine.
In that day and age, everything … and I mean everything … depended on your ability to show your ability to provide hospitality to others. Your status as a family … not just as an individual … depended on these social exchanges.
And if it went well, your place in that community would go up … your “honor” would increase.
But if something went wrong … if things went off the rails … if – worst case scenario – you ran out of wine at your own wedding and couldn’t provide for your guests …
That was the worst thing that could happen. This family would never, likely, recover from this. It would impact their ability to do business in their community. It would most certainly hurt their social standing. Not to mention how terrible it would be for the bride and groom.
…
In tough times, this is how we start to see the world.
In tough times, we start fearing the worst. And it ain’t long before the blame game starts.
Who’s job was this to take care of the wine?
What were we thinking?
We’ve worked so hard to put on a good wedding. But weddings are expensive. Maybe we’ll just save a few bucks here by not going big on the amount of wedding.
But then they start looking around at all the guests.
Wait … we weren’t counting on them.
Wait, … do we have enough.
And very soon we end up in a place all of us know … that place called scarcity … of not being sure we’ve got enough to go around …
Where life feels hard.
Where the challenges before us (not enough wine) seem larger than the answers to fix it.
Where we start to feel like maybe all we can expect is bad news.
…
Friends, don’t you ever forget what Jesus did there in that wedding of Cana.
I mean, we’re not just talking about a little bit of wine.
Again, he fills enough jars so that every person at the wedding would have what amounted to something like two to three bottles of the finest quality you could imagine …
In a situation headed for disaster … Jesus turns it into an overwhelming party of gladness, joy, and renewed hope.
In a situation headed for disgrace … people would be talking about this for years … oh, do you remember when so-and-so family totally botched the wedding …
To a wedding people are still talking about for the exact opposite reason.
Did you see what Jesus did?
Did you hear what Jesus did?
He makes all things well.
He takes broken situations and turns them back into wedding feasts.
He takes situations going off the rails … and saves it so that it becomes a celebration.
Anybody need that news these days?
Anyone looking for that affirmation?
That there ain’t nothing in this world that can derail God’s plans to throw us a wedding.
And not just any wedding …
But a wedding unlike any other … so full of joy and merriment and full hearts!
…
Yup, I know you’re wondering.
Whatever became of that wedding way back when on New Year’s Eve in the courtyard of Brescia University in Owensboro, Kentucky?
Whatever happened to that poor bride and groom?
I could hardly believe it. As luck would have it … or as Jesus would make it happen … on New Year’s Eve at 5:30 pm the temperature hovered around 60 degrees. The groom was more than comfortable in his tux. And the bride … well, she came out radiant with a long white dress and a warm fur drapped around her collar.
Unbelievably … they had done it … a wedding in the winter.
We serve and love a God who does the unimaginable in situations that we think are too much of a loss to save.
We serve and love a Jesus who is intent on moving us towards a beautiful moment in our life even when everything around us is pointing in the opposite direction.
He fills almost empty jars in a little town in Cana.
And he does all things well for our delight.
The evening ended inside at a big event center … and at midnight on New Year’s Eve, all the guests raised a glass in honor of the new couple! And the bride and groom celebrated with a kiss to ring in the New Year.
Don’t forget where we’re going!
Don’t forget what’s to come!
Amen!
Greencastle Presbyterian Church 