Why Vows Matter
When couples are struggling, they would be able to ask, “do we love?” “Am I in Love?” Love is a crazy thing. We hear all the time that people fall in and out of love, that love comes and goes. We see people who are in relationships claiming to “love them” but not be “in love with them.” It all becomes rather opaque and unhelpful. We have a clear remedy: the vows.
Every game has a set of rules; rules allow you to play the game. Without rules, anything goes, and there can be no strategies, no plans, no way to track your progress, and no clear goal. Rules create the framework for the activity. Once we know the rules, we can play the game.
Rules come with every relationship. Little kids act this out on the playground. Creating a “no girls only” sign, boys gather and tell secrets among them. In this small moment they are testing each other. Who will keep the secret? Who won’t keep the secret? Kids learn early that trust matters, and before they fully learn to trust others, they play games with secrets. Break the secret, and they don’t let you in the club.
Rules help children play games, they also help adults manage their relationships. We create contracts for work, sign long forms for lending and borrowing money, and follow laws in certain cities and districts so that everyone gets along.
God, when He initiates a relationship with the people Israel, does the same thing. God gives Moses the Ten Commandments, laws that were to be obeyed by the people of Israel so that they might be His people and He would be their God. In a concrete way, the people of Israel’s relationship was measured by their ability and willingness to enter into the covenant outlined by the commandments. Jesus reveals the same in the New Testament at the last Supper. Jesus tells the disciples that the new covenant, the one given in His blood, would be a covenant of love; “If you love me, you will follow my commands.” (Cf. John 14:15) Jesus’ command, we know is “love one another as I love you.” (John 15:12).
Before the altar, the couple about to wed makes their promise to love. They promise before their friends and family and before God that they will establish between them a lifelong partnership of love. Such commitment requires a clear structure, that’s why the couple is asked to state their vows. I __ take ___ to be my wife. I promise to be faithful to you in good times and in bad, in sickness and in health. I will love you and honor you all the days of my life. With these words, the spouses, newly married, create a covenant bound by new rules and standards. They establish a set of rules, guidelines, which enable the couple to best realize their new relationship. Bound by these rules, the couple share clarity and focus in their relationship. It helps them to navigate the highs and lows of their life, and test themselves in the relationship. Are they living their marriage well? Are they faithful to their spouse? Are they honoring their beloved in good times and bad, sickness and health?
This is why the vows matter: they establish the clear rules of engagement. Vows, professed by each, begin with an absolute promise, to be comprehensively, or totally, united to their beloved. They promise their heart, soul, mind, and body, to love and cherish their beloved from that point forward unto death. In this moment, they also eliminate the possibility to offer anything like this to anyone else. These vows are absolute, they cannot be repeated to anyone else, or they lose their primary significance. Breaking these rules in any way, serves to seriously jeopardize their relationship.
They also can serve as a reminder. They offer the couple a glimpse at the big picture. After thirty years of marriage, a couple can re-live their wedding day. By revisiting their vows, the couple makes clear what they promised to each other with the opportunity to recommit them. The vows are the rules and if you don’t have the rules you can’t play the game.
