Jordan and Kamalani's Wedding

Procession

Grand-parents

Jordan’s Parents

Bridesmaids

Please rise

Kamalani and Parents

Procession

Jordan you may receive your bride from her parents.

You may be seated

Introduction

Dearly beloved family and friends, we have gathered together this day in the sight of God and these witnesses, to celebrate the union of Jordan Anchundia to his lovely bride, Kamalani Reed, in God’s Holy Institution of Marriage.

Jordan and Kamalani are grateful for all of your love and support, and for being here today as they commit to one another before God on this joyful day. We are all so thankful to God that He has brought together Jordan and Kamalani for this most blessed occasion, as these two amazing people become one.

Let us bow our heads and begin this ceremony with prayer to our good God.

Prayer

Our most gracious God and Father, we thank you this wonderful time of sharing together in the bond of Holy Love. We are thankful for your amazing grace in sending your Son Jesus to be the Christ, so that we could be reconciled to you and seek your favor and blessing on Jordan and Kamalani this day. O Lord, we do seek your blessing upon their union today, as Jordan and Kamalani commit their vows of love to each other. Holy Father, grant that these vows would remain ever sacred in their hearts and actions. Lord, keep them strong in their most holy faith, and please cause them to be an unending source of encouragement to each other and their family and your church. We ask that you would keep their love strong and enduring, cause their home to be a place of much peace and joy, and keep their lives centered and focused on our Jesus, all their days. This we ask in the blessed and most holy name of our Lord Jesus Christ, Amen.”

Message

God’s Design

In the beginning, when God created the heavens and the earth, when He designed man and woman, He also designed the highest of all human relationships, the marriage relationship. It’s in the beginning of our Bibles that we find this most beutiful story. God made Adam from the dust but then declared, that, for the first time in His creation, something was not good. Genesis 2:18, “18 Then the Lord God said, “It is not good that the man should be alone; I will make him a helper fit for him.” God makes this judgement on Adam’s solitude state, “it is not good.” And then He declares His divine plan to address Adam’s situation, “I will make him a helper fit for Him. God then made a being perfectly suited for Adam, the woman Eve.

Before he does so, God put Adam through a scenario in which Adam would come to realize the same judgment, that he was alone and that was not good. God parades all the animals of the earth and gives him the instruction to name each one. In this exercise of naming the animals, Adam would see that there was no one suitable for him. He would see Mr. Lion and Mrs. Lion, Mr. Monkey and Mrs. Monkey, Mr. Elephant and…Mrs. Elephant. Mr. Tiger…and Mrs. Tiger. And after he was done, after he could not find a helper fit for him, God put Adam to sleep and made the woman Eve. And when he awoke, and saw his bride for the first time, he cannot help but to proclaim his love with the first love song ever, “at last! bone of my bone, flesh of my flesh.” This was not just a statement of fact that she was like him, this was an exclamation of his covenant commitment to her. At last! One who is perfectly made for me. And then, upon Adam’s adoring declaration, God blesses the marriage union, declaring, Genesis 2:24 “24 Therefore a man shall leave his father and his mother and hold fast to his wife, and they shall become one flesh.” And what I want you to see is that marriage then and this marriage now are by God’s design. He fearfully and wonderfully made Adam and Eve to be perfectly suitable for each other and He fearfully and wonderfully made you Jordan and you Kamalani to be perfectly suitable for each other.

But for what purpose? Why did God design the marriage relationship? Why did God make marriage?

To Mirror His Covenant

We find the answer latter on in the Bible, in the New Testament book of Ephesians. In Ephesians 5:31-32, Paul caps off his teaching on God’s instructions for wives and husbands, Paul says this, “Therefore a man shall leave his father and mother and hold fast to his wife, and the two shall become one flesh.” 32 This mystery is profound, and I am saying that it refers to Christ and the church.” Notice that after Paul quotes what God said at the wedding of Adam and Eve he adds this statement, “this mystery is profound.” This mystery is referring to marriage, to the union of man and woman into one flesh. And the reason why marriage is a profound mystery is that it was created to display the glory of God in a way that no other relationship or institution in creation does. Specifically, the marriage relationship has been, from the beginning of Creation, patterned after the covenant relationship between Christ and His chosen people, the church.

Jordan your marriage to Kamalani and Kamalani your marriage to Jordan was designed by God to reflect Christ’s relationship with His bride, His church. Put another way, your marriage is to be a mirror. So when you and when world look at your marriage, at your love and your commitment and your care for each other, we all see Christ and His love and His commitment and His care for us His church. Your marriage was designed to be a mirror of Christ’s covenant relationship.

And there is so much that I could say about how exactly to do that, we spent 12 weeks in marriage counseling talking about how to do that. But allow me to focus in on the heart of what you are to reflect, on the main message of those twelve weeks. At the center of God’s covenant relationship with His people, we find God’s covenant love. In the Old Testament we see over and over again this term lovingkindness. David shares in Psalm 63 that God’s lovingkindness for us is better than life itself. Psalm 36, His lovingkindness reaches to the heavens. It is a love that is ever faithful, that is everlasting, ever true. It is the source of His forgiveness for our sins, it is the root of God’s compassion and mercy and patience.

And it is in the New Testament, in the person of Jesus that we see Christ embody this lovingkindness. He is love itself. He left His father’s throne in heaven, became fully man so that He could come to dwell among us. So that He could serve our needs and heal our wounds and feed us with the bread of life and teach us of the Father God and die for our sins on the cross. And it is with His blood that He binds us, His church, to Himself as His bride in the New Covenant. It is in this covenant relationship that we are forgiven, reconciled, accepted, adopted into God’s family. We are made righteous and holy by His blood. It is for this reason that throughout the New Testament we, the church are called the beloved of God. Think of that! We who are in Christ are God’s beloved. This is what is at the root of His covenant relationship with us. He loves us with His covenant keeping love. We are His beloved.

And the most beautiful reality of this love is that nothing can separate us from it. Listen to the words of Paul in Romans 8, “35 Who shall separate us from the love of Christ? Shall tribulation, or distress, or persecution, or famine, or nakedness, or danger, or sword? 38 For I am sure that neither death nor life, nor angels nor rulers, nor things present nor things to come, nor powers, 39 nor height nor depth, nor anything else in all creation, will be able to separate us from the love of God in Christ Jesus our Lord.” Nothing can separate us from Christ’s covenant keeping love. We were made His beloved by His death on the cross and even that death could not hold Him. Jesus rose and defeated the most powerful reality in the world - death. If death couldn’t hold Him, what makes us think that death or anything less powerful than death could separate us from our Beloved.

Now let me bring this home. We, Christ’s blood bought church, are in a covenant relationship that is defined most powerfully by a covenant love that can’t be defeated, that extends to the heavens, that is sweeter than life itself, that will never fail. And God designed marriage for one special purpose - to reflect this relationship, and this highest of all loves, the love of Christ for us His bride. So then, God has brought you two here today and all of us as witnesses to the formation of a mirror of this love, of His love.

Here is my charge to you Jordan and to you Kamalani. Each morning you wake up and you look at each other think in your mind and believe in your heart, “at last! here is the one who was perfectly made to be my companion” And then think in your mind and believe in your heart “I am to love her,” “I am to be faithful to him,” “I am to serve her,” Wee are to be devoted to each other because our marriage is to reflect Christ’s perfect love for us. It’s in 1 Corinthians 13, in that famous love chapter, that Paul instructs us in the love that we must have for each other. And he concludes that instruction by saying this, “7 Love bears all things, believes all things, hopes all things, endures all things. 8 Love never ends. As for prophecies, they will pass away; as for tongues, they will cease; as for knowledge, it will pass away.”

Jordan, Kamalani, may your love for each other endure all things and may it never end because Christ’s love endures all things and it never ends, it never fails, it is ever faithful. May your marriage ever be the clearest of all mirrors of the marriage between Christ and us His church. To which we all say Amen! Let nothing separate you from your love for each other because nothing will separate us from the love of Christ.

Vows

Now, this is a covenant ceremony where two people are coven-an-ting together, committing to each other by making promises and vows to remain faithful to those promises. Jordan and Kamalani, you have each written personal vows to each other, which you will read now beginning with Kamalani and then Jordan. A

Kamalani:

Kamalani, do you promise to take Jordan to be your husband for as long as you both shall live? I do

Jordan:

Jordan do you promise to take Kamalani to be your husband for as long as you both shall live? I do

Exchange of Rings

To symbolize their unending covenant love to each other Jordan and Kamalani will now exchange wedding rings.

Kamalani place the ring on Jordan’s finger and repeat after me … “with this ring, I marry you today my husband, it is a symbol of my faithfulness to you and unending love for you”

Jordan place the ring on Kamalani’s finger and repeat after me … “with this ring, I marry you today my wife, it is a symbol of my faithfulness to you and unending love for you”

Three Chords

Now to symbolize their union to each other, the intertwining of their persons and their bond to Christ, Jordan and Kamalani will now tie a threefold cord. Allow me to read Ecclesiastes 4:12 before you perform this act.

12 And though a man might prevail against one who is alone, two will withstand him—a threefold cord is not quickly broken.

Blessing and Pronouncement

Jordan and Kamalani, May the good Lord grant that your lives be filled with His love, your home to be filled with His peace, and your hearts filled with the hope of Heaven’s eternal joy as you share your life together as man and wife. What God has joined together let no man or woman separate! To which we all say, Amen!

Dear Family and friends, please rise. I now present to you Mr. Jordan and Mrs. Anchundia…. Jordan you make kiss your bride!

Reception Announcement

Dear friends and family the bride and groom have instructed me to ask you to please dismiss from the back rows to the front to join the wedding party for a cocktail hour. You are dismissed.