God blessed the broken road

I officiated a wedding last weekend.

The groom is an old friend of mine. Fifteen years ago, his mom and stepdad let me crash at their house after I crashed and burned out as a church minister and seminarian.

After I imploded my life in just under a year of going to grad school and working with a small church in Texas, I snuck back into Michigan under cover of darkness one wintry February night.

I was homeless, jobless, and penniless.

Oh, and I’d burned bridges back here in Michigan.

About the only one left to me was the one that led to the basement of a mixed family home in suburban Detroit.

That’s where I met the groom. He was only 11 when I came to stay with his family. He didn’t know that the 30-year old man now living in his basement was a church-splitting, friend-betraying, money-wasting, seminary-failing talker who finally couldn’t talk his way out of the mess he made of his life.

All that kid knew is that he had a new big brother.

We had a ball for those four months. He, his little brother, and I would goof off and play for hours after a hard day of going to school and looking for a job. We played “trick shot H-O-R-S-E” out on the driveway. We had epic Nerf gunfights through the house.

I didn’t know it at the time, but those boys were restoring my soul to health. I spent most of my days feeling like a zero, but being their “big brother” made me feel like a hero to someone. It gave me hope and a reason to try again.

After three months, I got a job, moved into my own apartment, and then met the woman who would become my wife a couple of years later.

Meanwhile, that 11-year old boy grew up, went to college, and started a career. Early in his college years, he met a woman he loved and who loved him back. They became a couple. They graduated from college and started their careers, but stayed with each other. At some point, they moved in together. Finally, after living together for several years, they decided to get married this year.

Except the Christian pastors they asked would not officiate their wedding.

They were cohabiting, “living in sin.”

With weeks to go before the wedding, they were still trying to find someone to officiate.

That’s when they called me.

Without hesitation, I said “yes.”

Why?

Because they wanted to get married!

I think it was my best friend, Jimmy, and his wife, Tiffany, who chose the song ‘The Broken Road’ for their wedding.

It’s a song that expresses faith and hope that broken dreams, broken hearts, and broken relationships can lead to real love. The refrain is “God blessed the broken road that led me straight to you.”

I think the song is what us Christians call “biblical.” The essence of Christianity is that God makes perfection out of imperfection.

Or you could also say that Christianity changes the definition of “perfection.”

As the Book of Isaiah foretold about the Christ himself:

He had no form or majesty that we should look at him, nothing in his appearance that we should desire him. He was despised and rejected by others; a man of suffering and acquainted with infirmity; and as one from whom others hide their faces he was despised and we held him of no account (Book of Isaiah 53:2b-3).

The whole idea of Christianity is that what we thought of as “imperfect” turns out to be quite perfect after all.

The Good News is that God does bless “the broken road” and make it into the way to abundant and everlasting life.

So what, then, if a Christian denomination or a Christian pastor believes that cohabiting before marriage is a sin? If a cohabiting couple comes to your door to ask you to marry them, are they not asking you to help them go where you believe they ought to go in the first place?

You may believe that cohabiting is a “broken road,” but show me one person whose life is not a broken road. Show me one person whose “broken road” is beyond the blessing of God.

Who among us has never been on a broken road?

That’s where I was 15 years ago. Burned bridges behind me. What looked like a dead end in front of me. And it was all my fault. My foolishness. My pride. My sin. I deserved to be homeless, jobless, and penniless. I deserved to be friendless.

But thank God the Gospel has nothing, nothing, to do with what we deserve!

Thank God that an 11-year old kid ministered to me when nobody else could (or would). He blessed my broken road and “officiated” a fresh start for me.

Last weekend, I did for him and his bride what he did for me 15 years ago.

This is the Gospel. This is the Way.

Grace and peace.