Wedding Sermon 3.
A Wonderful Way to Love
Wedding Sermon
1 John 4:10–12
Rev. Randolph G. Sherren, pastor, Berea Lutheran Church, Richfield, Minnesota
Dear Name and Name, how wonderful that you’ve come to this sanctuary here today to begin your married life together, to say your vows to one another in the house of the Lord. It’s fitting on this occasion that we reflect on the Word of God, and I draw your attention to 1 Jn 4:10–12: “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. No one has ever seen God; but if we love one another, God lives in us and his love is made complete in us.”
A wedding is a very emotional event. This is the most highly charged day of your life, isn’t it! A marriage ceremony can be emotional, but Christian marriage itself isn’t based on emotion. It is based on Christ; it produces emotion. Marriage is your sacred promises and your keeping them with God’s help as affection comes and goes. The Lord regenerates that affection. As you come before the altar today, you’re not promising to feel a certain way, because your feelings will fluctuate.
What You Are Promising Today Is to Love a Certain Way.
The way God loved.
I
People ask what love is. A long time ago someone gave me a definition of love that’s stuck with me ever since. The person said, “To love is to love as God has loved us in Christ.” Our text suggests that that love has four parts to it.
The first is concern. John writes: “This is love: not that we loved God, but that he loved us.” As God looked down on his creation, his heart beat with concern for his world. We’d sinned, separated ourselves from him, but he couldn’t let us go. He had to do something, because he had a deep affection and a deep concern for the people of this world.
The second part of love is understanding. God understood what this world needed. “This is love: not that we loved God.” God understood that we couldn’t love him. Because of sin, we were self-serving, seek-seeking enemies of God out for number one. That’s why he sent our Lord Jesus Christ—because he understood what would move us, what would turn us, what would bring us back to him. God sent Jesus because he understood us.
The third part of love is the willingness to act on someone else’s behalf. That’s what God did. He acted in sending Jesus. Again our text: “This is love: . . . that he loved us and sent his Son.” God took the initiative, did what we couldn’t do. He gave up his most precious Son. And Jesus himself acted on our behalf. He did all the things that were demanded of us: he obeyed God as we should have and failed; he fulfilled God’s Law for us; he loved perfectly, in a way we couldn’t.
The fourth part of love as God loves is sacrifice, willingness to reprioritize, to reorder so that this loving activity can take place. “[God] sent his Son as an atoning sacrifice for our sins.” Sacrifice! Reordering priorities! The one the Father has loved for all eternity he made a lower priority than he regarded us. At least he willingly sacrificed his Son so that he might have us also with him forever. Jesus, the ultimate Sacrifice, took our punishment on the cross so that now God’s loving activity can embrace us now and forever in heaven.
II
“Dear friends, since God so loved us, we also ought to love one another. No one has ever seen God; but if we love one another, God lives in us and his love is made complete in us.” The way God loved us is the same way we should love one another.
First comes concern. From this day forth you are promising to act in a way that says, “The number one priority in my life after my Lord and being right with God is you, Name, and you, Name. My life will be focused on my deep concern for you. I’m going to care how you feel, what you think, where you go, how you act. I am committing myself to a deep concern for you.”
Second, you commit yourselves to understand each other. This is an exceptionally difficult commitment. Should, by the grace of God, you be married for 50 or 60 years, you still will not fully understand one another. But you are committing yourself to love as God loved you, and that means you are committing yourself to understand one another. I think this is perhaps the hardest thing in marriage. Groom, there will be times when Bride is crying, and you’ll ask her why. She may say she doesn’t know. That’ll frustrate you. You may be tempted to say, “Well, that’s just like a woman!” or “Women are too emotional.” But today you’re promising not to do that. You’re promising to be concerned for Bride and, out of that concern, to try to understand the best you can what’s happening in her life. Bride, there will be times when Groom appears fearful, distracted, anxious about what’s happening in his world. He’ll be anxious about things that don’t make you anxious. You might be tempted to tell him to grow up. But today you’re committing yourself not to do that. You’re committing yourself to be concerned for Groom and, out of that concern, to try to understand him.
You love the way God loves, third, by committing yourselves to act. In life we often take care of the big things, but find it’s the little things that make so much difference. Groom, you’re committing yourself to act in loving ways toward Bride. You’re committing yourself to act on her behalf. And, Bride, you’re doing the same toward Groom. You are promising that your actions toward him will be actions of love—actions of concern and understanding. Remember, your marriage is really the promises you make and keep, and the promise you make isn’t to feel a certain way. The promise you make is to love a certain way, the way God loves, and that’s action. Those things you do for each other are your love, just as this was love: that God sent his Son to the cross as an atoning sacrifice for our sins.
Finally, fourth, you love that certain way God loves by committing yourselves to willingly sacrifice on behalf of the other person. Now, sacrifice is a word that people don’t like much, but in reality everybody sacrifices. When I was growing up I wanted a Porsche. I wanted it a lot. It was a high priority for me. And the truth is that today I’d still like to have a Porsche. I just don’t think it’ll ever happen. What’s happened to my dream to own a Porsche? Other priorities have gotten in the way—other priorities that are higher. They include my wife, my children, my home, my church, my vocation as a pastor. All of these things are higher on my priority list because I’ve changed my priorities. That’s what sacrifice is. We all have a list of what we want out of life, but chances are we won’t get it all. It’s as if there’s an invisible line some place across that list. Everything above it, we’ll eventually get; everything below it, we won’t. You are promising today to put the other person and your marriage so high on that list that he, she, it—your marriage—are priorities that will happen.
With these commitments, you’re each giving away certain rights. Name, an hour ago if you had wanted to get in your car and drive to Mexico, you could have. Ten minutes from now, you can’t. And, Name, the same concessions apply to you. Many of your rights as single persons you are laying upon this altar because you are committing yourselves to reprioritize life to act a certain way, to love each other a certain way.
III
Brothers and sisters, Christ has loved us in this way. In this same way we ought also to love one another. That is what you are promising to do today: You are promising to be concerned for one another, to try to understand one another, to act on each other’s behalf, and to reprioritize your lives so that you can keep these promises.
Imagine a trip. As you start on this trip the ground is flat, and you’re making good time. Then you come to some hills, which make the journey harder. Eventually you come to a canyon that’s impossible to pass. What do you do? Give up on the trip? Or is the destination worth finding a way to bridge that canyon? Some in marriage come to that canyon, give up, and walk away. But others, from the commitment they’ve made to live as man and wife, look for a bridge. They cross and continue on their journey until they come to the next impassable canyon, where they look for another bridge.
As you go through your married life together, you’re going to have many good times, many easy times, but also some bad times. You’re going to have sadness, personal problems, relationship problems. Many people who encounter these problems say, “Well, that’s it. We’re done.” But the promises you two are making today are to look for the bridges across the canyons. God built those bridges when he loved you both in Christ Jesus, and you’ll find those bridges week after week, day after day, in his Word and the blessed Sacraments. As you, in these means of grace, continually receive his love and forgiveness, you, dear friends, will love as he has loved you.
Think about the destination you want to reach in your marriage. Perhaps you’ll say, “With you I hope to build a Christian home, to work at and create a solid Christian marriage, to raise Christian children.” Each of these is based on what we started with today—your simple promises to love one another as Christ has loved you. That certain way God loves you will sustain these promises.
