The Ring Signified

Defending the institution of honeymoon

Jun 29, 2025

I didn’t preach this Sunday, as I was on my honeymoon all week on the coast of Maine. During one of our hikes while camping on the tiny Isle au Haut, I was fiddling with my wedding ring, feeling the subtle joy of its weird weight on my flesh after never wearing rings my whole life (despite having two whole fingers supposedly named for this task).

It struck me that what makes wearing a wedding ring special in this first week of marriage is similar to how Presbyterians have traditionally thought of the sacraments. I know many readers of this newsletter aren’t Presbyterian (or in the broader Reformed umbrella to which we belong), so perhaps this can shed some light on how we think of the sacraments in a slightly different way from other Christian traditions.

On one level, Presbyterian sacramentology shares many commonalities with Catholicism; St. Augustine famously remarked that sacraments are “an outward and visible sign of an inward and invisible grace,” and this holds true for us. But we have some significant differences. Unlike Catholics (and some others), marriage isn’t a sacrament to Presbyterians, even though we believe it to be sacred and holy. The wedding ring, then, is a useful example of our special emphasis on the idea that “the sign is not the thing signified.”

One of our historical confessions (Westminster) nuances our differences by saying, “There is, in every sacrament, a spiritual relation, or sacramental union, between the sign and the thing signified,” while emphasizing that it isn’t the sacraments that themselves have power, but “the work of the Spirit.”1 Our sacraments (which for Presbyterians are just baptism and the Lord’s Supper) are signs of Christ’s presence in our lives, but are not to be confused as synonymous with him or that they directly confer holiness.2

Here’s how this shows up for us with marriage:

We believe marriage is a sacred union ordained by God. It is something that we believe God is present in, especially when we call on him in prayer and for help and center him in our marriage. However, we don't think that the wedding ring is a thing that literally transforms us into husband and wife. It is a sacred sign and symbol—and without it, something would feel just off and incomplete—but we do not think something “magically” happens when the rings go on our fingers in a way that has compelled God to bless us. It is simply a sign of God's presence that we believe was already there.

Likewise, we don't believe that if I lose the ring, suddenly God is no longer present or ordaining our marriage, or that it has even fundamentally changed our marriage. And yet it would still be important for me to get another ring because I want to have that outward sign of an invisible grace pointing to my love and commitment to my wife and God.

This is similar to how Presbyterians view the Lord's Supper. We neither want to make too big a deal of it nor make too little a deal of it. Through common elements—bread, a table, a cup, wine—we participate with Christ in how we know he participated with us, doing things that he expressly told his disciples to do. It is a gift from God to us as a means for us to knowingly, solidly, and assuredly participate in God’s life with us. Likewise, a precious metal ring is a similar common element that expresses our desire to participate in this wonderful gift of life.

But—and with respect to Catholics and others who have a different sacramentology, and I do not mean this as a misconstrual—we do not fret if we spill bread or wine that we are literally spilling Christ's body and blood. Rather than diminishing the sanctity of the Lord’s Supper, it clarifies it, and so we still joyfully and reverently celebrate that Christ is truly, really present with us when we partake in the Lord's Supper. In these common elements expressing something deeper, we believe he is fully with us through the Holy Spirit, just as we believe he is with us through the Spirit in marriage, even if not literally in the ring.

And perhaps this is why, also, celebrating the “institute” of honeymoon was important to us this week, and one I will “defend” here. Our honeymoon was not just a vacation to Maine that we would not have otherwise permitted ourselves to take, nor was it merely supported by incredible generosity from our friends, family, and church family, nor was it so sacred as if God had directly ordained it. But it put us squarely in parts of God's creation we had never been in, and we got to participate in the same places where we believe God always has really, truly, spiritually and physically present through creation, enjoying and delighting in him through the common elements of sea, rock, boats, seafood, campgrounds, sunsets, trees, friendly ferrymen, overpriced inns, and endless silly jokes and thoughtful conversations with each other along the way. And yes, in the new little piece of metal that goes with me when I climb on rocks, rap my knuckles on a dock hand rail, and twist around my left finger named after the thing it was named to carry, I can scarcely believe the fullness of the grace it points me to. Like a metaphor in Zen for describing itself is “a finger pointing at the moon,” the ring is just a thing on my finger that points to something more, even though this “just” hardly does it justice.

So as much as I love bread, wine, and this ring, the ring is not the thing signified. The full thing of love is so much better.