Mark 10: 6-9   A Wedding Meditation

The context for this meditation was the wedding of a young couple outdoors on a chilly fall day. They chose Mark 10 verses 6-9 as the Scripture to be read at their wedding.

Jesus replied. 6 “..  at the beginning of creation God ‘made them male and female.’[a] 7 ‘For this reason a man will leave his father and mother and be united to his wife,[b] 8 and the two will become one flesh.’[c] So they are no longer two, but one flesh. 9 Therefore what God has joined together, let no one separate.”

Here we are at your wedding day, Emily and Jason. This day has been planned for a long time. And today, it is, ready or not, here it is!

Today you are establishing a household here in the beauty of the great cathedral of God as it is found here in this apple orchard. You have made your vows to each other and in speaking those words out loud, you have done something that reminds us of God himself.

For in the beginning, as Jesus mentions, God made all of creation. He spoke and it came to be. He made human beings in his image, he made them male and female, and he said, this is very good. That act of speaking something into being is a God thing.

 And the two of you, as children of God today, have done the same thing – you have spoken and a brand new thing has come into being.   That new thing is a relationship that will bring a new realization on your part of what it is to walk with God. The spouse he has made for each of you—A man called Jason for you Emily, a woman called Emily for your Jason – God made you for each other. Now he has brought you together like he did Adam and Eve at the very dawn of the world.  And he calls it very good. 

Jesus tells us that as God intended the man will leave his father and mother and be united to his wife and the two will become one flesh. That word flesh means that the two of you by saying your vows today, have become one living being. You are no longer two, says Jesus, now you are one.

There are many implications to this. Jason, you no longer will think only of who you are as a man in this world. Now you are a man who shares in a living being with Emily. This is the great wonder of marriage. Two people whose lives become so intertwined that really to know one of you is to know both of you. The best marriages are those where the two people who make it up are so wrapped up in each other that they always are aware of what the other is doing, thinking, planning, wanting, dreaming.

Emily, you are no longer a young woman making plans for just your life, now you are someone who will always take into account your spouse. Your life will become intertwined with his. You and Jason will be one living being.

 Jesus says, this is an act of God when he adds, therefore what God has joined together, let man not separate. God’s creative act of making both male and female in the beginning is celebrated and wondered at every time there is a wedding. It is a gift of God to each of you to have a spouse who knows that the other has been created for you by the God who has joined you together by means of your speaking a new household into existence today.

 As the two of you become one as you make your way along the path God has planned for you, I want to remind you to always keep in mind that God has made you one. There will be occasions when you wonder what God was thinking, but as long as you keep in the forefront of your mind that this person is a gift of God you will find that God will also give you the ability to continue to make your love grow and your joy will be great as you are joined to each other for life.

 God wants to bless you with joy and happiness.  He desires that you will be a solid building block for a society of people who know how to keep promises.  Your vows were an audacious act of promising this afternoon.  But what is so wonderful is that God is the source of the power to keep those promises.  God is the one who desires to be the power that not only keeps those promises from breaking but makes them stronger with every passing year. 

May the Lord walk with you for many years to come.  May he give you a deep desire for one another so that you keep faith with the spouse of your youth!

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I Corinthians 13 A Wedding Meditation

If I speak in the tongues of men and of angels, but have not love, I am only a resounding gong or a clanging cymbal.

2 If I have the gift of prophecy and can fathom all mysteries and all knowledge, and if I have a faith that can move mountains, but have not love, I am nothing.

3 If I give all I possess to the poor and surrender my body to the flames, but have not love, I gain nothing.

Charlie and Jessica, it’s your wedding day. Today you have pledged that you will love each other for as long as you both shall live. Those words are an audacious promise that takes the unpredictable future and puts one part in the future that will be consistent. You will have each other no matter what may come.

That will require a generous dose of what Paul calls love in I Corinthians 13. For the love that Paul is describing there is a love that will not give up.

As I was preparing this I was listing to an album of a famous singer’s favorite love songs. The songs on the album are beautiful expressions of the affection that two people can have for one another. That’s great as far as it goes. But the love that Paul is speaking of here in the text of I Corinthians 13 goes far beyond that affection that people can have for one another.

 You see, affection is something that we do hope you have for one another, but it isn’t the love that will keep you going when everything is going wrong. Affection is totally unreliable as a predictor of the future. Because all one needs is a down and dirty argument and all affection is gone. In fact, you can even come to the point of wondering where you had found that affection in the first place.

Jessica, I would dare to predict that there will come a morning when you get up and you see Charlie sitting there at the breakfast table and these words will cross your mind, what was I thinking?

 Charlie there will come a day when you are on your way home and you’ll be reviewing the previous night’s disaster and you’ll say to yourself, what was I thinking? Affection is not a glue that will hold your marriage in one piece. No, you need love like Paul is describing it.

 Love that is more heavenly than the speech of the angels.

Love that is more pleasing to the ear than the finest poetry that humanity has set to music to make a love song.

You need love that is more than insight into the ways of human beings and their idiosyncrasies.

 You need something that is stronger than the ability to foretell the future. You need love which is far beyond being able to understand our world and its inter-workings.

In fact, you need a love which is stronger than the faith that can say to a mountain be removed from this spot and cast into the sea.

You need love even more than you need a generous heart or a courageous heart. So, what is this love that Paul is peaking of? It can be summed up in a simple sentence. It is a commitment to the other person’s good.

This love is one which is not looking out for itself. The love that is looking out for oneself is a sort of love that can be described as the love which cares for another because of the benefits that come to me when I love that person.

 In many families the other people are only seen as people who are there to meet my needs and if they do not then I won’t love them either. That is love which is all about me.

Another way to look at love is the sort of affection which says I love my spouse because together we can face the world. And that is a good thing. It can be summed up as love which is all about us as we are together.

 But that is not what Paul is describing here. No. Here he is talking about a love which says I am committed to do as much for you as I can without any thought of what it will do for me. This is all about you. That is the love that Paul is exalting in here. So as you face your future together, God is calling you to make a commitment to the other person which says, My life is all about you from now on.

When that is how you live, you will find your joy is filled with the wonder of God’s holy presence who will make this sort of love possible for you. Then what Paul has to say in the last verse of I Corinthians 13 will become evident in your life together: Now these three things endure, Faith, Hope, and Love. And the greatest of these is love.

 That is what I pray your marriage and life together will demonstrate to all who see you live your lives together.

 Love is the greatest gift of God and you are living it every day!

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1Corinthians 13:

“Tie the knot”

4 Love is patient, love is kind. It does not envy, it does not boast, it is not proud. 5 It is not rude, it is not self-seeking, it is not easily angered, it keeps no record of wrongs. 6 Love does not delight in evil but rejoices with the truth. 7 It always protects, always trusts, always hopes, always perseveres. 8 Love never fails.

Josh and Jessica, the words I read from I Corinthians 13 are words I want to impress on you today. This is your wedding day. It’s a most significant day in your lives as you live before the face of God. For on this day, you have made promises to each other that have reached into the unseen future and made it a bit more secure because you know this other person is going to be in that future, no matter what it is, together with you.

The making of a vow to another person is a very impressive act on our parts when we boldly reach into the unknown and make promises that will endure the changes that will surely come our way in the next several years. But one thing will not change, the companionship of the person standing next to you right now. You have made promises that will give both of you strength to face an uncertain future. And the wonderful thing about this is that your husband, your wife has promised to love you.

And you can build a life on that. You can build a wonderful life on that promise you have made to each other.

 Let me show you some of the ways: The Apostle Paul says, love never fails. The word he uses there for never fails is the word that was used to describe the current of a mighty river. The water never failed to keep on flowing. Paul says, that’s what love is like.

The current of a mighty river, or the current of a power line in our day. When the electric current stops, we have a power failure. What you have promised today is that you will never have a power failure in your love. You have decided and today you have given your word to each other, to keep on loving, no matter what. No power failures in this home.

I pray that such may be the case, for then I know your future will have an abundance of love in it. Paul tells us, love is not rude. Sometimes when we interact with each other, we can be less than thoughtful. And the words we use are not good for building up the other person, and we find ourselves having been rude.

That is the time when we bruise the other person with words. We bump into them harder than they need us to. It’s one thing to seek to help each other to grow as persons, it’s quite another to be so blunt as to be hurtful. You have promised today that your words to one another will not be blunt instruments of hurt.

Rather, you will use your words to make life better for the other. Jessica, some day when Josh comes home from work and he’s fuming about some refrigeration unit that refused to be repaired, he might be tempted to use his frustration as a reason for doing some blunt talk with you. At that point, just remind him that Josh you promised not to do that. I’d love to hear about your day, but remember, I’m not the refrigerator, OK?

 And Josh when you sense that Jessica is really frustrated with some of those people at the dental office, just remind her that you are vitally interested in what is going on in her life, but that she has promised to share her life with love so let’s not be rude to each other.

 I want to remind you that there is help for you to accomplish all this – the Lord wants to be the one you turn to for help in your time of need. He wants to be acknowledged as the source of your power to love. You need a good church family to be a part of where your walk with God will be nourished and your connection to the God who created the love you have for each other will be renewed week by week. I encourage you again to be sure to make that a priority because the power to love can only come from the blessing of God. And it won’t be there without the Lord.

 You have established your home today in the name of the Lord; make it last in his presence. For then, I promise you today, you will never be sorry that you walk with God and each other.