Warren Sentinel "Weekly Pulpit" (06/18/09)
It was a picture perfect Spring evening. The bride was beautiful; the groom looked dashing; the bridal party was dressed to the nines; and even the minister looked pretty sharp! The horse and carriage, and more importantly the bride, arrived without incident. The bagpiper played on the hillside beyond the pond. None of the bridal party fell off the dock that extended out into said pond. And even the ring survived being passed from the best man to the minister to the groom and was ultimately placed safely onto the bride's finger.
Everything went smoothly until it came time for me to share some words of encouragement with the bride and groom. I read 1 Corinthians 13:4-8, “Love is patient, love is kind. It does not envy, it does not boast, it is not proud. It is not rude, it is not self-seeking, it is not easily angered, it keeps no record of wrongs. Love does not delight in evil but rejoices with the truth. It always protects, always trusts, always hopes, always perseveres. Love never fails.”
I began by asking everyone whether they had heard a sermon recently at a wedding. Almost everyone raised their hands. I asked if anyone remembered anything from those sermons. All hands went down. I went on to note that Jesus had been invited to a wedding and that he either hadn't been asked to preach a sermon or, if he had been asked, it either wasn't remembered or recorded. But Jesus did use the occasion to perform his first miracle (according to the Gospel of John).
When they ran out of wine at that wedding, Jesus turned water into wine. I, for better or for worse, am incapable of performing such miracles. Performing a wedding may be as close to performing a miracle as I'll ever get. Weddings are pretty miraculous! But here's the thing, as I shared these thoughts, I suddenly became very nervous.
I wasn't nervous because I was speaking in public, I was nervous because I was officiating a wedding. I was putting the Church's and the State's seal of approval, if you will, on a miracle! The miracle of two lives becoming one. I did my best to steady my nerves and continue. What I then tried to share with the bride and groom is that love, and by implication marriage, is a “God-thing.” Don't believe me? 1 John 4 twice says that “God is love.” Still don't believe me? Go back to 1 Corinthians 13:4-8 and substitute the word “God” for the word “love” everywhere it appears (ie., God is patient, God is kind …. God never fails.).
The sort of love that binds us together in marriage should be a God-sort-of-love! Maybe this is why the New Testament describes the Church as the bride of Christ. So as I struggled with my own emotions and the awesomeness of the moment, I hope I conveyed to Matt and Meral (and to anyone listening in) that we are called to love each other in marriage with the God-sort-of-love that is patient, kind, … and which never fails.
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