It’s estimated that nearly 2 billion people watched the marriage of Prince Harry and Megan Markle on Saturday 19thMay 2018. Over 100,000 gathered in the streets of Windsor to watch the carriage-ride procession, while 1200 were invited inside the walls of the castle to get an even closer look. 600 received invitations to the service itself and the wedding breakfast that followed, and 250 were invited to the party in the evening. And at the heart of it all were just two people very much in love.
For all sorts of very practical reasons that’s the way it goes on these occasions – the many watch from afar while the select few are allowed to draw near. So it is in most religious systems of the world – a few are invited to come close to the divine while the majority must keep their distance.
But from the heart of Harry and Megan’s wedding service came a clear declaration of an invitation made by God to all the world – a message of ‘redemptive love’ expressed in the life, death and resurrection of Jesus Christ, that means everyone is invited not just to draw near to the heart of God, but to live in the intimacy of His loving heart. The only question is whether we will choose to come.