Carries Wedding
Carries Wedding,
Genesis 2:18-24, 1 John 4 7-11, 14-16, 18-19, June 18, 2005
“Family Ties – Bond Together By Love”
Carrie and Brian, you are standing here in the presence of your families and friends to declare your love and commitment to each other in Holy Marriage. More importantly, you are standing in the presence of God and making a commitment to Him that you will love, honor and cherish each other until you die. This is serious business isn’t it? It is one of the most special days of your lives. It is filled with joy and celebration, with laughter and delight. This is because you are being bound together as man and wife with our blessing and Gods blessing.
Summer is a great time to get married. It reminds me of when God created the world in the first seven days. It reminds me of how beautiful it must have been. The glory of His creation is still reflected for us today. We see it as the green plants spring up from the earth, grow and blossom into sweet smelling flowers. We see it as the birds sing love songs to each other, sweet sounds for the human ear to hear. We feel it with the warm sun caressing our skin. We see it in the stars of the sky to give us cheer in the night. We are surrounded by a creation that is so intimately beautiful and bound together that it is beyond our understanding. I can imagine what the first man felt like as he marveled at God’s creation. It must have seemed awesome. But perhaps there was a longing deep within His soul for some one to share it with. Life is always better when it is shared with another person. How often do we go through life saying, “I wish I could have shared this moment, what I have seen, what I have heard, what I have felt, with someone else. Knowing that life is better when it is shared with someone else God said that it is not good for man to be alone. So God caused man to sleep and from the very essence of man God created woman. There at that moment God bound man and woman together to be a family, to share life together, to share God’s creation together, and to share in God’s love together. They were bound together by His love and blessing.
Carrie and Brian, this is the blessing that God is giving you today. You walked in here as two, you will leave as one. You are being bound together in such an intimate and beautiful way that it is beyond your understanding. From now on you will share life together and you will share God’s love together.
Of course that which is bound together can be broken apart. Right after the world was created, right after man and woman were joined together they decided that they could live without God. Adam and Eve decided that they could live as they wanted to, and not according to the will of their Creator. They broke their relationship to God. As a result, death and disorder entered the world. You both have seen the result. In your families you have seen divorce and broken relationships. It is not always easy to be married.
But you are not without hope. You have also witnessed good marriages. You find hope in the scripture reading that you chose. Dear friends, let us love one another, for love comes from God. Everyone who loves has been born of God and knows God. This is how God showed his love among us: He sent his one and only Son into the world that we might live through him. This is love: not that we loved God, but that he loved us and sent his Son as an atoning sacrifice for our sins. Dear friends, since God so loved us, we also ought to love one another. And we have seen and testify that the Father has sent his Son to be the Savior of the world. If anyone acknowledges that Jesus is the Son of God, God lives in him and he in God. And so we know and rely on the love God has for us. God is love.
God is love. Though his creation was broken by our choice, He binds it back together through His love. His Son Jesus Christ is the one that restores our relationship with Him. You know that true love is not easy. It was not easy for God either. It was not easy for God to send Jesus Christ into our world, to live as we do and to die as we do. It was not easy for Jesus Christ to grab onto the crown of thorns and to suffer shame and finally be crucified. But God knew that even as His Son died, through His resurrection he would put an end to death forever. His resurrection from the dead is the promise that we too will be raised from the dead to live forever. That new life begins now through faith in Jesus Christ, but this life is not free from pain and trouble. As God’s love is expresses to you through forgiveness, you too will need to express your love for each other through forgiveness.
A little girl was walking past a beautiful garden tended by an Old Man. In the middle of the garden was a beautiful rose. The little girl asked the Old Man the name of the rose. He said its name was “Love.” Day after day she longed to posses that rose. One day a little boy walked past the garden. He too saw the rose and was captivated by its beauty. Together they wished to posses that rose. “May we have it,” they asked the Old Man. “There is only one way,” the Old Man replied. “You must grab the rose together around its stem and around its thorns and squeeze as hard as you can and then it will be yours. You must remember that to possess its beauty you must also possess its pain.” Together they grabbed the Rose called “Love”. It was theirs and its beauty never faded.
Today we see the beauty of your love. May I dare say tomorrow there may be thorns? Forgive each other as you have been forgiven by God. It will not be easy, and it will hurt. This is the example we have from God who sees us as His beautiful creation and has grabbed onto us even though it hurt Him to death.
Carrie, your mother and I remember you as a little girl, looking for love, and always hoping to find it. We are so happy that the Lord has led you to a good man. And that with the Lord’s help you are grasping together that Rose called “Love.” May God bless you both today and everyday of your lives together.
