Two weddings ceremonies recently had the bridal couples making extremely different wedding vows.  Both couples had made up their own vows... and obviously in consultation with each other – because I noted similarities between the bride’s vows and the groom’s vows.

In the first one, the couple – amongst other things – promised they would love each other for ever and ever.  While I can appreciate the sentiment, I thought that their promises were just a tad over the top.  Okay, I guess that when young people are madly in love and just getting married, they don’t seriously think of the reality that one of them will most likely die before the other.  There is therefore every chance that one of them will one day make new vows of marital love and affection to someone else.  There has always been good sense in the phrase: “...until death us do part.”  In any case the Bible affirms that death dissolves a marriage.

The second couple went to the other extreme.  They both made promises to love one another for as long as they both were able.  Stagger me!  What’s the point?  I was somewhat annoyed with the civil celebrant who allowed them to get away with that sort of vow.  Why not be more honest then and promise to stay together until the divorce courts us do separate..!?

All this raises a deeper question: the value of our vows in general and our wedding vows in particular – because, after all, for many people the marriage vow is the only vow they will ever make.  That question takes on some urgency when we realise that in Australia in 2020 the average time from wedding to separation was just under eight and a half years and from marriage to divorce just twelve years.  And the figures are still dropping.

When I was growing up separation and divorce were relatively rare.  During my teenage years I knew only one divorced person in my entire circle of family and friends.  So why is it so much more prevalent now?  The complexities of modern life undoubtedly have something to do with it.  So too does the introduction of ‘no-fault divorce’ into Family Law in 1975.  However I’m of the opinion that in general we’re less likely to keep vows in our day and age.  We’re not as good anymore at keeping our word.

Please don’t think that I’m arguing here that there should never be any exceptions to breaking a vow – particularly a marriage vow.  But when a spouse in an abusive relationship opts out of that relationship the relationship has already been broken by the partner who resorted to violence.  No!  It just seems to me that in our society we’re not so good at honouring our promises as we once were.

There was a couple that were celebrating their sixtieth wedding anniversary.  The local paper sent a reporter to take a picture for the newspaper.  The reporter asked the husband, “Tell me, in all those 60 years did you ever think of divorce?”  The reply?  “I can honestly say, before God, that I never once thought of divorce; murder, yes, but divorce, no!”  I share that story simply to highlight that there was a time in our society when wedding vows were sacrosanct.  The man’s reply shows that sometimes relationships can become so strained that we could easily have done one another an injury – but without ever seriously considering divorce.

No!  I cannot prove that we are less likely to keep our promises in 2023 than we did in 1973.  My ‘evidence’ by and large is anecdotal... stories of men and women who promised but didn’t deliver.

Well, the good news is that when we repent and trust in Jesus we are forgiven for all our sins – also for our broken promises.  In fact the good news of the gospel is even more wonderful than that.  A living relationship with the Lord Jesus Christ means that His Spirit is working in our lives producing the Fruit of the Spirit – and one of those Fruit of the Spirit is faithfulness.  It’s when a man or a woman is in a faith relationship with Jesus Christ that they increasingly become a man of his word, a woman of her word.

John Westendorp