Headlong Forward Together

For Grace & Josh… And for all who may perform, produce, or otherwise listen and hear…

Grace’s Bridal March, “Headlong Forward, Together”, was written to answer several questions:   What does it mean for me to marry off my daughter?  What does her marriage mean?   What does she mean to me?  What does my new son-in-law mean to me? I trust that in many ways, the self-speaking answers of the heart are discernible in the music.  May those answers resound in proclamation!  

Wedding ceremonies move me.  In fact, the older I get, the more they do.  I don’t cry much, but the entry of a bride will succeed at evoking a tear.  The bridal march starts to play, the congregation stands in honor, and then the moment we’ve all been waiting, or better, *yearning* for…  the doors swing open and there she is, adorned in radiance and glory, floating down the aisle to join her groom, to whom she and he will in turn vow to give everything they have until the day they die.  Total sacrifice.  Complete surrender.  Pure devotion.  Unending loyalty.  Pressing ahead.  No reserve or retreat.  No backup plan.  Just headlong forward, together.  The two become one.  What is it about this that is so moving? 

I believe part of the emotion of the moment is that we are sharing a taste of both the struggle and blessing into which the couple is jumping.  And the older I get, and the longer I am married, the more deeply I understand and feel this awareness.  It’s a funny thing about love… it will drive one to accept any sacrifice that must be made for the object of affection.  But it works the other way too.  The more you sacrifice for the one you love, the stronger that love gets.  It is a virtuous cycle.  And so, in this moment, we are feeling both the cost and the reward, sharing a concentrated taste of it, together, with the couple.

But there’s more to it than that.  The whole event pulsates with mystery and energy.  There’s something bigger going on.  And we are plugged into it.  It’s not just about the couple.  We look around at each other and are all somehow bound.  For this thing the couple is doing, that many of us have already done, or will eventually do, is the foundation of everything.  We are tapped into the fabric of the universe, wired in to all that is right and true and good.  Families and generations and cities and nations and civilizations, they all start right here.  This is the stuff from which it is all built.  And what is that “stuff”, exactly?  The plunge of commitment of the one to the other, each sold out for the other’s good.   From this flow safety and security and blessing and joy and accomplishment and life and honor and glory and every good thing.  As long as that commitment doesn’t waver, nothing can stop the fruit which will flow!

And why is that?  Because God made it so.  And He Himself is so and made us so in a glorious embodiment of who He is.  I am not talking merely about “principles for success”.  I am talking about our very connection to our Creator, and to each other, both very real yet supernatural things, as the source and means and end goal of life itself.    Those bonds and connections, forged in self-sacrificing love, are everything.  And by comparison, everything else is nothing. 

The Bible often uses plants and horticultural imagery as a concrete and visible picture of the transcendent and supernatural reality of the grace and life and power of God flowing from Himself thru His people, producing all kinds of good fruit.  In Genesis 1, at creation, God placed the man and woman he’d created, into whom He had breathed His very life and Spirit, into a garden, to enjoy and tend it.  He blessed and commanded them to “be fruitful, multiply, fill the Earth and subdue it.”  Or as paraphrased by me: “Tend my Garden, and while you do, you yourselves (not unlike the plants you are tending) go sprout and multiply and spread  everywhere (along with My Spirit which you carry), governing and beautifying everything… You, my emissaries, I bless and charge you.  Go!  Create!  And rule it all!” 

Psalm 1 declares that “Blessed is the man… whose delight is in the law of the Lord, and on his law meditates day and night. He is like a tree planted by streams of water that yields its fruit in its season, and its leaf does not wither.  In all that he does, he prospers.”  God’s word and law are the nourishing stream, and for the one who sinks their roots deep into this stream, there is confidence and assurance of fruit.

In Isaiah 55:10-13, part of the Scripture Lesson for Grace and Josh’s wedding, God makes a pronouncement to His people Israel, in advance of delivering them from captivity and returning them to their homeland.  He guarantees that His word is sure, and that He will emancipate His people to a life of flourishing and security, like the rain which produces cypress and myrtle, in witness of which even nature itself will erupt in worship:

“For as the rain and the snow come down from heaven and do not return there but water the earth, making it bring forth and sprout… so shall my word be that goes out from my mouth; it shall not return to me empty, but it shall accomplish that which I purpose…  For you shall go out in joy and be led forth in peace; the mountains and the hills before you shall break forth into singing, and all the trees of the field shall clap their hands. Instead of the thorn shall come up the cypress; instead of the brier shall come up the myrtle”

In John 15, Jesus further employs the horticultural imagery, and adds some additional explanation on the mechanics of this divine biology, the mysterious life-giving connection between God and His people.  Jesus declares of himself that “I am the true vine, and my Father is the vinedresser…. Abide in me, and I in you…  Whoever abides in me and I in him, he it is that bears much fruit…”  In further clarification of what this “abiding” means, he states that “If you keep my commandments, you will abide in my love…”  and that “This is my commandment, that you love one another as I have loved you.  Greater love has no one than this, that someone lay down his life for his friends.”   All of which comports perfectly with his teaching in Luke 9:23 that “If anyone would come after me, let him deny himself and take up his cross daily and follow me.  For whoever would save his life will lose it, but whoever loses his life for my sake will save it.”  In other words, the path to “abiding” and the “life” and the “fruit” of connection with God involves a self-sacrificing loyalty to another, first to God, then to spouse… a willingness to die to self, over and over, for the sake of the other.  And in this loss of self, ironically, a truer self, a greater and more glorious creature emerges, one that is bound in supernatural connection to God along with others who share this same divine, biological engrafting.

And in this mysterious, supernatural biology, Creation itself glories and worships.  We saw it in the passage from Isaiah 55 above, where God promises “The mountains and the hills before you shall break forth into singing, and all the trees of the field shall clap their hands.”  Paul refers in Romans 8 to the fact that “…Creation waits with eager longing for the revealing of the sons of God” at which point it “will be set free from its bondage to corruption and obtain the freedom of the glory of the children of God” for which it is currently “groaning together in the pains of childbirth”.   Revelation 19:6-7 depicts the unleashing of this cosmic worship tying it back to the Great Wedding, of Christ to His Church, describing a sound of “what seems to be the voice of a great multitude, like the roar of many waters and like the sound of mighty peals of thunder, crying out, ‘Hallelujah!  For the Lord our God the Almighty reigns.  Let us rejoice and exult and give him the glory, for the marriage of the Lamb has come, and his Bride has made herself ready!’”

The abandonment of self.  The gaining of “Us”.  The Connection.  With Each other and God.  The life which flows.  The glory which surrounds it all.  A Christian wedding summons all of this depth of imagery and potent reality and delivers it in one concentrated shot.  This is the story this piece attempts to tell.  It is a testimony and a proclamation.  About *this* marriage, but also about marriage generally, and The Great Marriage to which they all ultimately point, of Christ to His church.  The piece is an offering of faith and worship and loving devotion to the God who designed marriage, and blesses and nourishes us with it, and in and thru which He is working His glorious plan of redemption and the consummation of all things into a glorious eternity for His people.

The brassy calls and string responses, the interweaving of the feminine (string) and masculine (brass) melodic lines, they are all representative of Groom and Bride, calling out to and for, anticipating, responding, and moving toward each other.  And the various voices of harmony are family and friends in celebratory support.  But telescoping out, the picture is even bigger.  Christ is calling His people, and they respond, and all nature reflexively worships at the prospect of the Great Consummation, of Christ with His Church in eternal glory, as Nations stream toward the Heavenly throne and the Tree of LIfe bearing its fruit for the healing of the nations.

The intended effect, as Dad and Bride make final approach to the altar to hand off Bride to groom, as the Brass erupt into full fanfare, the timpani’s thunder, and the strings and bells restate the core melodic theme in unison, in a swelling finale, would be to wrap this moment in heavenly glory and celebration, evoking a sense of something like the lyrics to the great hymn: “All nature sings and ‘round me rings the music of the spheres.”  

I hope the piece moves you in some way.  I hope that it inspires wonder and the worship of God, and of His Son Jesus Christ, whether for the first time or the millionth.  And I would love to hear your thoughts!  Who knows what points of inspiration God might have planted in here that others might take away that I didn’t even know were there…  So reach out and do let me know!

And may you, Lord Jesus, be pleased to incorporate this small offering somewhere into the endless and ever-expanding repertoire of praise to be sung by all of Creation in Eternal Glory!  I can’t wait!

Jay Foulkrod

Father of the Bride & Composer

Jay.Foulkrod@gmail.com

512-577-4245