The homily delivered at my youngest daughter’s wedding. Video available here: https://www.youtube.com/live/OWmn3Qm8qf4.
Audio of the homily is here:
JT and Annie, it is a great honor to stand here with you today as you take your marriage vows before God and these witnesses. It is an honor to charge you from God’s Word.
Annie, it’s been a great privilege for you mother and I to raise you and to see the beautiful, godly young woman you have grown into. As I said last night, it is hard to give you away – but I guess I’ve already answered that question, so here we are.
And JT, I know your parents are proud of the (slightly older but still young!) godly man you have grown into. You are exactly the kind of man we prayed would seek Annie’s hand in marriage. And that’s really what this day is — the answer to years of prayers!
Each of you is a gift to the other – not just in that each of you is giving yourself to the other, but in that God is giving you to each other.
You are a good match for each other in all kinds of ways, but especially in that you both belong to the Lord Jesus and to his church.
Each of you is a model of Christian faithfulness. You have each committed your lives to Christ, and today you come to commit your life together to him as well.
You have trusted in Christ in your lives up to this point, and you will continue to trust in him as you build your life together.
Before belonging to each other, you belonged to Jesus.
Before you loved one another, you were loved by Jesus and you loved him in return.
Jesus is the rock, the foundation, the cornerstone, on which you will build your life together, and that means constructing this new life together according to the blueprint laid out in his Word.
Speaking of his Word, we read from Mark 10 just a minute ago. In Mark 10 Jesus defines what marriage is. We could sum it up this way: From the beginning, marriage has been one man and one woman sharing one life.
What is the most important word Jesus uses to describe marriage? We might think when it comes to marriage words like “love” or “honor” or “forgiveness” are the most important words to use – and they are important — but Jesus doesn’t use them.
THE most important word Jesus uses is that word “ONE.”
Marriage is about the two becoming one. Marriage is about ONENESS.
The two become one.
Marriage means oneness.
One mission.
One last name.
One home.
One bed.
One bank account.
One family.
One flesh.
One Lord, one faith, one baptism.
ONE LIFE.
Marriage is the deepest form of oneness we can experience this side of the world to come. Oneness means union and unity. Oneness means the joining of your hearts and your bodies and your lives. It means the two become one.
Marriage is not a math problem – math would never never tell us 1 +1 = 1. Marriage is not math, it’s a miracle. Jesus says GOD is joining you together today. God is at work in this ceremony. He will work through the words you say, the promises you make, the symbols you exchange. Even though I’m the officiant of your service, I’m really just a by-stander, another witness to what GOD is doing. God is knitting the two of you into one new thing – that’s what marriage is. A new family is being formed today and this is the work of God.
Oneness means companionship and covenant. In Malachi, the Lord tells the men of Israel that their wives are their companions by covenant. Marriage is a covenant of oneness, a covenant of companionship.
Jesus takes us all the way back to the beginning to explain that this is God’s design.
When God created Adam, he was TRULY happy in the Garden. But we was not FULLY happy until God gave him a wife. Adam was created good – but it was NOT GOOD for Adam to be alone. He could only enter into the goodness and happiness God created him to enjoy when God provided a wife for him.
The great 17th century British pastor Thomas Gataker said, “There is no society more near, more entire, more needful, more kindly, more delightful, more comfortable, more constant, more continual, than the society of man and wife.” Gataker said a man’s house is half unfurnished and unfinished, and not fully happy but only half happy, until he is completed by a wife. JT, I’m sure you would agree.
In marriage the two become one. And you experience the fullness of that oneness as you pour yourself out for one another. You pour love out of yourself and into the other. That shared love, that exchange of love, that mutual love, is the life and soul of your marriage. Your lives are completely intertwined by this love, completely twisted together as one.
But as modern people, we tend to get this wrong. This love should certainly include feelings, but it is not limited to feelings. It’s really a love that manifests itself in action, in willing, desiring, and acting for the good of the other. This is not a love solely based on fluctuating feelings. When you take your vows in just a minute, you are not going to say anything about the feelings you have for one another today. There is wisdom in those ancient vows you will be reciting – it’s an old wisdom and the old wisdom is better than the new wisdom. The old wisdom is undefeated. Rather than describing how you feel in this moment, or even you will feel in the future, the vows you will take will commit to a course of action towards one another from this day forward. You will promise to be there for one another no matter what – no matter what happens; no matter how good or bad the times are; no matter how you feel on any given day for years to come. You will promise to fulfill the duties and obligations that come with the marriage relationship. You will promise to do certain things for one another, come what may, til death do you part. That promise is what God’s Word calls a covenant. Again, marriage is a covenant of companionship. In this marriage covenant, you become one in the deepest possible way.
What does it mean to live as one in the covenant of marriage?
It means that when you bless you spouse, you are blessing yourself.
It means that if you were to harm your spouse, you’d be harming yourself.
It means should you ever have an argument (and you probably will!), the goal cannot be defeating your spouse because you’d really be defeating yourself. The goal has to be working together to solve the problem because then you both win. You will never face a problem in your marriage the two of you cannot solve if you you tackle it together, as one.
You are one – so it’s impossible for one of you to win and the other lose. You are one, so you win or lose together. It’s impossible for one of you to succeed while the other fails – you will succeed or fail together because that’s what it means to be one. There is nothing competitive about marriage. If one of you keeps score, tallying up who does what or keeping a record of wrongs, you both lose. Marriage doesn’t work that way. You see why that word “one” is so important?
In a few moments, when you take your vows and become one, your happiness in this world will be forever intertwined. You will be mutually dependent on one another for the rest of your lives.
But the most important expression of your oneness comes in helping each other journey towards the world to come. You help one another along the way to eternal life. Eternal life is a gift given to us in Christ Jesus. But we enter his kingdom though many trials, struggles, and battles. You will be one another’s closest companions in those struggles and battles as you journey together towards eternal life.
Today, you are signing up for the work of meeting one another’s needs – but more than that, you are becoming partners in the work of sanctifying one another, of aiding one another in the process of being transformed into the very likeness of Christ.
Thus, through times of sickness, distress, and hardship, do not frustrate God’s purposes in making you one. Every hardship is an opportunity to further the fulfillment of that purpose, growing together in faith and repentance.
Marriage is a gift, but it’s also a vocation, a calling, a demand. That’s what it means to be one – you are one in the pursuit of the glory of the world to come, one in your pursuit of Christ.
The church father Tertullian, in the year 200 summed it up this way:
“How beautiful, then, the marriage of two Christians, two who are one in hope, one in desire, one in the way of life they follow, one in the religion they practice. They are as brother and sister, both servants of the same Master. Nothing divides them, either in flesh or in Spirit. They are in very truth, two in one flesh; and where there is but one flesh there is also but one spirit. They pray together, they worship together, they fast together; instructing one another, encouraging one another, strengthening one another. Side by side they face difficulties and persecution, share their consolations. They have no secrets from one another, they never shun each other’s company; they never bring sorrow to each other’s hearts… Psalms and hymns they sing to one another. Hearing and seeing this, Christ rejoices. To such as these He gives His peace. Where there are two together, there also He is present, and where He is, there evil is not.”
In the name of the Father, the Son, and the Holy Spirit. Amen.
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