Epiphany 2C

The theme of marriage is fairly obvious in the lessons for today. Both the passage from Isaiah and the Gospel reading from John involve marriage. Isaiah illustrates beautifully the imagery of God’s relationship to His Chosen People - Israel - as the relationship between a husband and his wife. Today’s Gospel lesson recalls the scene of Jesus’ first miracle - turning water into wine at a wedding feast. And these two passages being brought together today is no coincidence.

But before we go too deeply into the Biblical idea of marriage, let’s make sure we’re all operating with the same understanding. If I asked you: “what’s marriage all about?” - how would you respond? Or maybe “what does it mean to be married?” Do you have an answer? For those of you who are married: did you think about these questions before you got married? Did your answers to those questions change after you got married? Did your answers to those questions change between the early years of your marriage and the later years?

Just a couple of questions to consider.

The first time I heard a question like that was during a pre-marital counseling session I was doing before Wendy & I were wed. Our pastor asked us to do this before he would preside over the ceremony. And so I was asked for the first time: “what is the purpose of marriage?” On the surface, it seemed like a simple question. It’s one of those questions that I think all adults assume they know the answer to…or maybe I should say society assumes all adults know the answer to. But if you’ve never put any thought into it, you can get quite easily frustrated…which I certainly did. I tap-danced my way around the question with things like “spending a lifetime with a woman I love” and “raising a family”… but it felt like something was missing, and I couldn’t put my finger on what I was leaving out.

So, I thought I’d take a look around the internet and see how other people answer this question. I found some really interesting responses:

“Marriage is when you agree to spend the rest of your life sleeping in a room that's too warm, beside someone who's sleeping in a room that's too cold.” [Contributed by E.J. Graff.]

Overheard: "Marriage is nature's way of keeping people from fighting with strangers.” [Alan King]

Marriage is like twirling a baton, turning handsprings or eating with chopsticks. It looks easy until you try it. [Helen Rowland, quoted by Robert Keeler in The Toastmaster, Reader's Digest, June, 1994, p. 130.]

I like this one: [A couple] accompanied [their] son and his fiancé when they met with her priest to sign some pre-wedding ceremony papers. While filling out the form, the groom read aloud a few questions. When he got to the last one, which read: "Are you entering this marriage at your own will?" he looked over at his fiancé. "Put down 'Yes,'" she said. [Lilyan van Almelo, Reader's Digest, May 1993, p. 138.]

Kidding aside, I really like this one: “Marriage is not romanticized in the creation account. Its ideal purpose is not one of sweet feeling, tender words, poetical affections or physical satisfactions--not ‘love’ as the world defines love in all its nasal songs and its popular shallow stories. Marriage is meant to be flatly practical. One human alone is help-LESS, unable. But ‘Two are better than one,’ says Ecclesiastes, ‘Because they have a good reward for their toil. For if they fall, one will lift the other.’ Marriage makes the job of survival possible. And the fact that a spouse is termed a ‘helper’ declares marriage was never an end in itself, but a preparation. We've accomplished no great thing, yet, in getting married. We have completed a relationship (though many a fool assumes that the hard work's done with the wedding and turns attention to other interests). Rather, we've established the terms by which we now will go to work.” [Walter Wangerin, Jr.]

So back to my pre-marital counseling session: the chaplain taught me that marriage is intended to help a wife and a husband grow closer together AND grow closer to God. And now I knew the part I was missing. God has to be a part of that relationship. We have a few couples in our church family who have been married longer than I’ve been alive…and I’d be willing to bet that if you asked them, they would tell you that’s true.

But as we look at Isaiah, God is not talking about being “part of” a marriage. He’s describing His relationship to His people as the same thing as a young man who marries a young woman. This is one of the last chapters of Isaiah, and much of the early chapters have been spent describing the disobedience of the people, which was the cause of God’s wrath. Isaiah also spent a lot of time describing the despair of the people, and how they felt forsaken by God. Now, however, the prophet is starting to bring some good news to God’s people. And he does so in describing a marriage.

As I see it, marriage is a unique bond in all of human society. In the Biblical model of marriage, it is the absolute closest that two people can possibly be - physically, emotionally, spiritually. Most other types of relationships are only capable of providing closeness in one or two of those areas. Best friends, children or parents, business partners, prayer partners… none of them go quite that deep. Only marriage - as defined by God - offers closeness in all three.

So, is it surprising then, that God uses this supreme closeness to describe the relationship He wants to have with His people? God doesn’t want to be just our friend. Yes, He’s our Heavenly Father and we are His adopted children - as He claimed us in our Baptism. But He wants more for our relationship than that. He wants to build on that.

Martin Luther wrote this about Isaiah 62: “[Verse 4: And your land shall have a lover. The Hebrew word, בָּעַל, denotes a man placed over the family, the head of a household. Hence the word Baal means a spouse and a husband. Thus all things, fields, meadows, and groves, have their own Baal, that is, owner, to whom they should be subject as to a spouse. [Martin Luther, Luther’s Works, Vol. 17: Lectures on Isaiah: Chapters 40-66, ed. Jaroslav Jan Pelikan, Hilton C. Oswald, and Helmut T. Lehmann, vol. 17 (Saint Louis, MO: Concordia Publishing House, 1999), 346.]

Did you catch that? The word Isaiah uses for “Marry” here comes from the word for husband or master: Baal. And yes, it’s the same root word as the Baal false god that the Hebrews turned to that made YHWH angry. He described their disloyalty to Him as they worshiped the Baals as “adultery” in several different places. It was as hurtful to God as when someone finds their spouse cheating on them with someone else. Such is the depth of God’s love for us, and His hurt when we turn our hearts to something or someone else instead of Him. Our God - YHWH/Yehovah we call “Lord”. The false god Baal is called “master”. The Lord considers Himself the husband of His Chosen people. When they worship another master, it is akin to the sin of adultery…at least in the Lord’s eyes…and in His heart.

Luther continues: “5. For as a young man marries a virgin. ‘As a young man marries a virgin, so your sons shall have a bride. As a bridegroom has a virgin. As a young man feels who has just taken a bride, so I love you.’ He makes Himself entirely our Bridegroom. There is no greater love among us than the love for a bride, for whose sake the parents are left behind. No one can explain this, as Solomon says (Prov. 30:19), ‘I do not understand … the way of a man with a maiden.’ So here: ‘The way a bridegroom is minded toward his bride, so I am minded toward you. I cannot let you go; yes, I give you all that you have. Then a supreme change will take place.’” [Martin Luther, Luther’s Works, Vol. 17: Lectures on Isaiah: Chapters 40-66, ed. Jaroslav Jan Pelikan, Hilton C. Oswald, and Helmut T. Lehmann, vol. 17 (Saint Louis, MO: Concordia Publishing House, 1999), 346.]

The way a bridegroom is thinks about his bride, that’s how God thinks about you. Can you picture that wedding scene in your imagination? The grand moment in any wedding: the doors open and the bride in her white wedding gown takes that first step into view. No one, especially not the groom, has seen her yet. Now, at this moment, all attention is on the bride. But can you picture the groom’s face? Most of us have never seen the groom’s face in that moment, because that’s not where we’re SUPPOSED to be looking. If anyone in this room knows what the groom’s face looks like in that moment, it’s because we *were* the groom.

I remember that moment. “There she is - my wife.” My WIFE. That’s a powerful word. And it should be. It’s a word that carries with it a deep and meaningful bond that’s wrapped up and held together by God Himself. He shares in that bond, and He wants to be every bit that close to each one of us. He looks at us with that same hopeful love and fondness, that same joy and sense of fulfillment. Such is the depth of God’s love for each and every one of His children.

With this in mind, is it not perfectly fitting for his Son to reveal himself in the middle of such a celebration? Oh, sure Jesus put up a little resistance to his mother “Woman, my time has not yet come.” But ultimately, he makes sure the celebration is not ruined by a lack of wine. Just as the groom wanted the celebration of his marriage to his bride to be flawless and perfectly joy-filled, so God wants us to be joy-filled. That is evident in how Jesus handled this minor crisis. He provided for the family. He ensured their wedding celebration would be joyous and not embarrassing or incomplete. And as he provided wine late in the celebration, it was not just adequate, average, cheap wine. It was absolutely delicious. Possibly the greatest wine any of them - including the master of the feast, a true connoisseur, had ever had.

In this season of Epiphany we remember the many ways that God reveals Himself to us and we rejoice that He continues to reveal Himself to us today. If we were gathered in person, we would have shared in His Holy Supper (we will do that again soon). Today, He has revealed Himself to us in His Word. He is present in our gathering, as He is each time we come together in His Name. He has promised to always be present with us, and we take great comfort in knowing that even in the great storms of life, He promises to never leave us.

[Isaiah 62:4-5] “You shall no more be termed Forsaken, and your land shall no more be termed Desolate, but you shall be called My Delight Is in Her, and your land Married; for the Lord delights in you, and your land shall be married. For as a young man marries a young woman, so shall your sons marry you, and as the bridegroom rejoices over the bride, so shall your God rejoice over you.”

Let us pray: we give you thanks, Almighty God, that you do look upon us in love and hope for us and for our relationship with you. Strengthen our hearts that we would always look to you when the storms of life shut us in, isolate us, or chill us to the bone. Help us to trust in you and to seek your face when we don’t know where else to turn. Inspire us to walk the path that you have called us to, and bring us to celebrate with joy all that you have blessed us with, especially the blessing of your Son, Jesus Christ our Lord. In the name of the Father, and of the +Son, and of the Holy Spirit. Amen.

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