Obviously, I have done a lot of weddings over the years. I try to preach a different homily each time. I’ll post some old wedding homilies here from time to time, but this is one from last weekend, based on Psalm 128.
Madison and Eli, it is a great honor to stand with you here today as you take your vows and enter into the covenant of marriage. You have each committed your lives to Christ and today you commit your life together to him.
In a few moments you will take vows, sealed with the words “til death do us part.” And the reality is, that’s how a successful marriage ends – in death.
You are probably not thinking about death right now, and who would want to think about such a sad thing on such a happy day? You’re not thinking about who’s going to die first, you’re thinking about all the happy years you hope to have together. But the reality is that death is inevitable for all of us, and that’s why the vow is worded as it is. I’m not being morbid here, I promise, but there’s a reason why Scripture calls us to face the fact of death squarely. Scripture reminds us again and again that death is an inescapable reality:
In Psalm 90, Moses calls us on us to number our days that we might gain a heart of wisdom.
Ecclesiastes 2 reminds us both the wise man and the fool end up in the grave.
Hebrews 9 says it is appointed for man to die once and then face judgment.
Passages like these call on us to live life backwards – to live life with the end in view, to live life from the end to the beginning. To put it another way, think about what you want your life, or in this case your married life, to look like when it’s over, and reverse engineer what you must do in the present to get that result.
Or let me put it this way: You chose Psalm 128 for your reading today. It’s a beautiful passage. It describes the ideal marriage and family life, across generations. It describes a husband and wife in a home filled with joy and love; it describes their children as olive plants gathered around the table with them; it describes living to see your children’s children; and all of this is described as living under the blessing of the Lord. If you want to get to the end, when death finally parts you, and you want to be able to say, “We lived a Psalm 128 kind of life; we had a Psalm 128 type of marriage and family, “ what do you need to do now to get that result? How do you build this kind of marriage and family, and leave this kind of legacy?
Eli, it starts with you. The Psalm begins, “Blessed is the man who fears the Lord.” Scripture teaches us that the fear of the Lord is the beginning of wisdom. But it’s also the beginning of a good marriage. To fear God means you desire to please God more than anyone else – more than your wife, more than your children, and yes, more than yourself. Fearing God translates into obeying God. And so the God-fearing man is going to love his wife and lead his wife in the ways God commands. Fearing God means, of all the words you hear, the Word of God has to carry the most weight with you.
Now notice in Psalm 128 the family is gathered around the table. Family dinner is always the center of family culture. The family that shares meals together is tight knit. But also notice the possessive pronouns used here: The family is eating the fruit of his labors; his wife and children are around his table and in his house. He’s clearly at the head of the table, because as Scripture teaches again and again, the man is head of his household. He has authority over his household and he has responsibility for his household. The man is the primary provider. The man is making sacrifices for the good of his household. The man is working on behalf of his family. The man is leading the way in the fear of God.
Eli, this is your responsibility – the responsibility you are taking on today. You are the protector for this new Trisler household being formed today. You are the provider. You are the leader. You are accountable before God for the household that will bear your name. In the Garden of Eden when Adam and Eve ate the forbidden fruit, the Lord came to them, and what did he do? He called out to the man, “Where are you?” He held Adam responsible for what happened. When Jesus came into the world what did he do? He took responsibility for his bride. To be a husband is to bear this burden.
Eli, today, you are becoming a king – the king of your household. But the crown you wear is a heavy one, because you are taking on weighty responsibilities. Do not shirk those responsibilities; by the grace of God, pour yourself out to fulfill them.
Now, Madison, consider how this Psalm describes the wife. If the man is the head of the home, she is the heart. She is described as a fruitful vine in the heart of his house. The fruitfulness here obviously includes children – and the children are described as olive plants, which is interesting because the olive tree is used to represent the covenant people of God elsewhere in Scripture, such as Romans 11. Lord willing, the two of you will be fruitful and multiply in this way, and God will grant you children. God uses the fruitfulness of Christian marriage to enlarge his church. Malachi 2 teaches that God calls together a believing man and a believing woman in marriage in part because he is seeking godly offspring.
But, Madison, the fruitfulness of the wife is not only found in children. If Eli is oriented to the world, as the protector and provider, you are oriented to the home as it’s life-giver and nurturer.
Madison, when you look at the profile of godly wives described in Scripture in passages like Genesis 2, Proverbs 31, 1 Corinthians 11, and Titus 2, we find that wives are described as helpers to their husbands; the wife is the glory of her husband; she is submissive to him, meaning she gets under his mission and supports him in it. Your calling as wife is to cooperate with Eli’s leadership. It’s to bring a glory and beauty to his life that would otherwise be lacking. It’s to build him up by respecting for him, cheering him on, serving as his closest confidant and counselor, as a source of wisdom to him. It’s to be a nurturer and an encourager in your household. A man can build a house, but it takes a woman to turn that house into a home, to fill it with glory and beauty. If Eli is becoming a king today, that means you are becoming his queen. And together, you are called to fulfill God’s purposes in bringing you into the covenant of marriage. Together, you fulfill God’s creation mandate to be fruitful and to have dominion.
Madison and Eli, God-willing, the two of you will have many, many decades to build a life and a household together before death parts you. What kind of marriage do you want to have to look back on someday? What kind of legacy and heritage do you want to leave behind? What kind of mark will your marriage make? What will be the most outstanding memories?
Will you mainly remember times when you bickered with one another and had petty arguments? Will you remember holding grudges, or words you said that you wished you had never left your mouth?
Or will you remember all the ways you blessed one another, so that you built something beautiful and lasting? What kind of mark will your marriage make on one another and on the world? Eli, love Madison like Jesus loves the church. Fear God and lead your wife. Madison, honor Eli the way the church is called to honor Christ. Be his helper, his glory, his confidant and counselor. And in this way, your marriage will fulfill the beautiful pattern of Psalm 128. You will have a happy and holy home that blesses not only the two of you, not only any children God might give you, but that blesses the world. That’s a marriage well-lived.
It might feel like today is a finish line – it’s your wedding day, it’s finally here, you made it! In reality, it’s a starting line. It’s the beginning of something new. God is forming a new family here today, as you leave the families in which you grew up and cleave to one another. Today, God is making you one in the covenant of marriage. And when you take your vows in a few minutes, you will be promising to live in your marriage according to God’s design. Make that your legacy, so that when you really do reach the finish line, you can look back and know that you ran this race well. You will know you have lived the kind of life you want to have lived when it’s all said and done. Do the things you must do in the present so in the future you can look back and rejoice over what you have built together.
One last thought: The Psalm tells us God’s blessing upon this God-fearing family flows out of Zion. “May the Lord bless you from Zion,” the Psalmist says.
What is Zion? In the Old covenant era, Zion became known as the place where the temple was located. Zion was the place where the people gathered for worship. In the new covenant, Zion is a name given to the church. Hebrews 12 says that when we gather for worship with God’s people, we have come to Zion, to the heavenly Jerusalem.
Madison and Eli, you are both Christians. You are both citizens of Zion, of the city of God. Where do you get the strength to fulfill the vows you make today? Where do you find the grace to build a Psalm 128 kind of life together? Where do you get the wisdom needed to navigate life’s challenges, to forgive one another, and to fulfill your respective roles in this marriage covenant? The Zion of God – the church – is the answer. The godly man will get his family to church because the Lord’s blessings are found there.
Jesus has accomplished our salvation in his death and resurrection. But the Holy Spirit applies what Jesus accomplished through the preaching of the Word and through the sacraments, which are found in the church. If you want God’s blessing, you have to seek it where it is found – which is among God’s people, where his Word is preached and his communion table celebrated.
This psalm begins, “Blessed is the man who fears the Lord.” We might say it ends, “Blessed is the man who gets his family to church, to Zion.” The God-fearing man is a church-going man. The God-fearing family is a family that is plugged into the family of God, the church. There are many responsibilities and duties each of you has to fulfill in order to have a Psalm 128 family. But this is included among them: gathering to worship God with God’s people.
Eli and Madison, all those gathered here, your friends and family, love you and only want what is best for you. Everyone gathered here wants to support you in your married life. We rejoice together with you today. But we are not only rejoicing because a faithful Christian man and a faithful Christian woman are being joined in marriage. We are rejoicing today because we trust that another Psalm 128 family is being formed. And Psalm 128 families are a blessing, not just to the husband, wife, and children on the inside of that family, but also a blessing to those on the outside. The church and the world need Psalm 128 families more than anything. By the grace of God, may you form just such a family.
TPC Pastor's Page 