Just Give Me the Cake

My girls were delighted to hear that Uncle Matt was getting married. They were even more ecstatic when asked to be in the wedding party. They had great fun trying on fancy dresses and being a part of all the preparations for the upcoming big event.

Months later, the day of the wedding finally came. You could feel the anticipation in the air, but for my daughter Colleen, the youngest member of the wedding party, her excitement held a solitary focus: cake. "We're gonna have cake today!" she told us first thing that morning. It was the anticipated high point of her day.

Later that morning, Colleen was downstairs getting ready for the wedding. Her shimmery dress was slipped down over up-stretched arms. As her head popped through the neck opening, it revealed two eyes aglow as she once again brought up the cake. "Is it time for cake yet?" she asked.
"Not yet, sweetie," I told her. "First we have the wedding, then we have the cake."
It soon became apparent that the pretty new dress, sparkly shoes, and the chance to throw petals held far less enchantment then her anticipation of eating wedding cake.

Soon we were being assembled in a line outside the sanctuary door as we waited for the processional to begin. Not surprisingly, Colleen turned to ask if she would get cake once she was done throwing petals. "Not yet honey," I told her. "We have to wait for the reception. That's when we'll have cake."

Colleen proudly fulfilled her flower-girl duties and then struggled through the remaining ceremony, unable to savor the moment. Frankly, she just didn't care about the pontifications on love, beautiful music, or Grandpa's words of blessing. To her, the whole ceremony was simply an object that stood in the way of her getting a piece of cake.

After the ceremony, the wedding party posed for photos. My gown being sporadically tugged on as she asked, "Is it time yet, time for the cake?"
"Soon," I assured her, "very soon."

Finally, things wrapped up and we piled into the van as we headed for the reception. When we pulled in the parking lot, I glanced back at Colleen who was conked out in the back seat, her floral headpiece off-center like a cock-eyed halo. "Hey girl," I said. "Wake up, it's time for cake. It's the moment you've been waiting for." Her eyes didn't open. We carried her in and once again tried to revive her with the promise of cake. No avail, she was down for the count.

Inside, we pulled two chairs together into a make-shift bed and I covered her with my shawl as she continued to lay there motionless. She slept...slept through the dinner, slept through the introduction of the wedding party, slept through the dancing and slept through the cutting of the cake.

Colleen was too young to understand the whole significance of the wedding day. To her it was a day of getting cake. I, on the other hand, understood that what she was really getting was far better. She was gaining family. She was getting a new aunt and would eventually gain cousins. Family was the true gift of the day.

However, I don't think that one has to be a three year old with rosy cheeks and twinkly eyes to miss this point. I think there are many people in the church today that are going through life motivated by the hope of heavenly rewards in the same way Colleen was passionate about the cake. Many Christians have turned rewards into the focus that drives them, clamoring on about them as if they were an ultimate end, the high point of eternal life. I question this motivation. Are we to go through life with our hearts set purely on accruing rewards? Are we missing the wedding while dreaming of the cake?

Maybe, we'll find ourselves like naive three year olds on that great day, when we understand rewards in light of what we've truly gained: family, the ultimate family. We will fully understand that God has given us, the church, as a bride to His beloved son. Maybe in this face to face communion with God we will realize we had been passionate for the lesser things. We had it all backwards. We had missed the significance of this unique wedding.

At the end of the reception a waiter approached me about my sleeping daughter's untouched meal. "Would you like us to wrap this for you to take home?" he asked.
"No thanks," I said. "We'll skip it, but if...ah..we could take a piece of wedding cake that would be great...just great.