Prepared For the Weight of Your Ring?

“Well, you are still here
And I am still here
Whether I ever loved you is
Not perfectly clear
…
I guess I still love you
If I ever did
And I can see myself having a couple of kids
And we will get by
For the rest of our lives
…
Though weight’s not an issue
You have gained more
And when I said, “I do.”
I slammed all the doors
To a future where I
Could see Paris in Spring
And I wasn’t prepared
For the weight of this ring
But we will get by
For the rest of our lives.”

You have probably already guessed it, but you will not find these lyrics anywhere in the Song of Songs.  You will not find them in the Sermon on the Mount or in Paul’s discourse on marriage in 1 Corinthians, either.  Instead, these are lyrics from “The Wedding Song,” written by country music artist Bruce Robison and sang by his brother, Charlie Robison, and Natalie Maines, one of the Dixie Chicks.

Charlie Robison

In the song, we are told the story of an unhappily married couple, a couple who are committed to staying together despite the fact that they are not quite sure whether or not they ever truly loved each other.  Despite their feelings towards each other, which could at best be described as apathy, they are confident that they “will get by for the rest of [their] lives.”

It should not surprise us that such a picture of marriage is found outside the church.  In fact, this picture of marriage provided by Charlie Robison is actually more exalted than we find typically among unbelievers.   How many married unbelievers truly expect to get by for the rest of their lives?  I would suspect not very many.  Most assume divorce as the norm, and if they can make it for the rest of their lives they will be pleased to find that they are the exceptions to the rule of divorce.

Unfortunately, if statistics are correct, the reality of marriage within the church is not any better.  Supposedly, divorce rates among evangelicals are just as high as the divorce rates of non-Christians.  Our most committed Christians are usually more familiar with Charlie Robison’s theology of marriage than the theology of marriage presented by our Lord Jesus.

The truth is, you will very rarely “get by” when you follow the world’s ways in marriage.  Indeed, the world’s ways are futile.

So how must the church respond?  We need to reclaim a biblical vision of marriage.  The leaders in the church must teach and live out, however imperfectly, a theology of marriage which honors the vision of marriage presented by Jesus and the rest of Holy Scripture.  We must labor hard until the Song of Songs is lived out in our churches as opposed to the wedding song of this culture of despair and death.  We must strive not just to “get by” despite “the weight of [our] rings” but labor in biblical love as we live out the “profound mystery” of marriage (Ephesians 5:32).