Naked Without My Wedding Ring

Beloved,

I love my wedding ring. I sleep with it on. I do life with it on. There is nothing that I wear more perpetually than my wedding ring. In fact, there is only one activity that I tend to take it off for–when doing an upper-body work out. For my metal pull-up bar in the basement and my metal ring don’t make for a great match! 

Being the early riser that he is, Vos tends to be my workout partner. It is pretty fun watching him try to do pushups, pull-ups, and even attempting squats with a 15lb. kettlebell. So this morning he joined me for a workout, and as it began, I quickly slid my wedding ring off. In no time at all, Vos lost interest in the work out and began riding his bike. But what I hadn’t realized was that he had taken my ring. Forty minutes later when I went to grab my ring, it was no where to be found, and while Vos admitted he had taken it, he didn’t have a clue where it was.

After bribing the finder of the ring with a waffle cone from Clumpies, we had quite the search party going. But the ring remains missing, and it has left me with a strange sense of nakedness. That ring has become a fundamental part of who I am. For despite what the ideology of expressive individualism would like me to think, my identity is necessarily tied to others. I am a husband to Tessa. Yes, that is not my core identity. A day will come when one of us will die, and we will no longer be husband and wife. But it is a fundamental part of my identity at present. And my wedding ring is a sign and seal of that identity-shaping marriage relationship. It is a sign to all that I belong to another. I am not my own, and I am not available. It is a sign of Tessa and I’s covenant obligations to one another. My heart, mind, eyes, and body are to be devoted to this singular women. It is a seal of Tessa and I’s covenant vows to have and to hold each other, for better or for worse, for richer or for poorer, in sickness and in health, to love and to cherish, until we are parted by death. The ring is important because of what it signifies. The ring almost never comes off because of what it seals. 

So without it, I feel less than myself. 

While that external sign and seal is not absolutely necessary for me to be Tessa’s husband (in fact, some of our Puritan forefathers argued that wedding rings were idolatrous!), it is certainly a help in being the husband God desires me to be. For it is constantly reminding me of who I am and what I am called to. 

This whole ring ordeal today has reminded me of the vital significance of the external signs and seals that God gives us in our covenant marriage with Him, especially baptism. Could there be a more identity-shaping ordinance than baptism as God puts His Triune name upon us and gives us a tangible picture of our union with the crucified and risen Christ? Before I am a married men, I am first a baptized man! And unlike my wedding ring, the sign and seal of baptism gets to the very core of my identity as an eternally-loved son of God in Christ. But similar to my wedding ring, the baptismal waters are a continual reminder that my identity is relational through-and-through. I belong to Jesus, and what tremendous security is found there. For He has given me a ring in baptism which serves as a confirmation of His undying love, a covenant love that cannot be quenched even by my own funeral. 

I’m finding myself thinking more about my wedding ring today than I normally do. It’s been a reminder of what a helpful and identity-shaping act it can be to reflect upon the significance of the metal band on my left ring finger. If such is true of my wedding ring, how much more so is it true of my baptism! 

How often do you reflect upon your baptism and all it signifies and seals? Christ has given us this visible word to continually seal upon our hearts His love and to call us to continually love Him in return. He has given us this sacrament to profoundly shape our identity so that like Martin Luther we might regularly profess, “I am a baptized man [or woman]!”, as we reveal in all that we are and all that we have in Jesus Christ. Would we feel naked and less than ourselves without it? Or is our baptism of so little significance to us that it wouldn’t make much of a difference whether we were baptized or not? 

Yours in Christ,
Pastor Nick