Wedding sermon: 21 July 2023
If you were to pull a random stranger off the street, and ask them; what is a wedding for? Why do people get married? I’d bet you all the money in my pocket (which admittedly is not a great deal!) that his or her answer would include the word love. A celebration of love, a commitment to love, a witness of love.
Love is written into our DNA.
We heard from the book of Genesis an account of how we were made by God – how he wanted to make each one of us in his own image and likeness. What we heard this afternoon is from Genesis 1 – the seven days of creation – it’s what we might call the “short version” of how God made man and woman. In Genesis 2, we get the long version, which explains why God made us as man and woman.
In that account God decides to make man, humanity, in his own image, and so he makes Adam, the man. But there is something wrong – the image of God is incomplete with the man on his own. God sees that it isn’t quite right, and makes Eve, the woman. It’s only then that we are truly made in God’s image; because God is love and love is meant to be shared.
Love is woven into our human identity – being alone is simply not in our nature. And note, at the end of every day of creation, Genesis tells us God saw what he had made, and that it was Good. The Greek word the bible uses is kala – excellent. And yet, at the end of the sixth day, only when he had made man and woman in his image, only when we existed in a relationship of love is a little superlative added – not just kala, but kala lian – exceedingly excellent, as the translator of our English bible puts it, God looked at everything that he had made, and he found it, not just good, but very good.
The whole point, the only reason we are here at all not just today with Jack and Lydia but every day and for the whole existence of the universe, is love. God created everything so that we could love. People act like the meaning of life is some great mystery, when in fact it’s very simple; love. Love is the meaning of life and the reason for all existence. God is love, and because love wants to be shared, he willed to make us as images of his love.
Love is the golden thread that runs through the whole bible – the Jewish Law is nothing but two commandments, love God, and love your neighbour, stretched out into a whole code. The prophets revealed God’s love for his people, and then we get to Jesus, then we get to the first Christians.
How were people supposed to know who was a real follower of Jesus and who wasn’t? What sign were we to give? Saint Paul spells it out for us; it isn’t prophecy, it isn’t comprehension of the mysteries of creation, it isn’t miracles, it isn’t the gift of tongues, even the ability to speak as the angels speak; it’s love. Without love, all of these gifts and powers and wonders are meaningless.
Jesus spells it out, in the Gospel of St John,
This is my commandment: love one another as I love you.
The New Testament was written in Greek, and sometimes the power of the original words gets lost in translation. This is one of those times. We only have one word for love, but the Greeks had seven different words for different types of love. The first six are all kinds of love we might recognise; Philia for the love between brothers, Philautia, for the love of yourself, Eros for romantic love, Ludus, for flirtatious love, Storge, for familial love, and Pragma for committed love.
But in our readings, Jesus and St Paul don’t use any of these words, they use a seventh word for love, agape. Agape is the kind of love that exists between God the Father and Jesus Christ his Son, agape is unconditional, absolute, inexhaustible, universal love. Agape is the love that even death cannot conquer; because it’s the love that made Jesus sacrifice himself on the Cross in order to save each one of us. This is the love St Paul is describing; patient, kind, not jealous or pompous, or rude, or quick tempered, not seeking it’s own interests, not brooding over injury, or rejoicing in wrongdoing. Agape is the love that willingly bears sufferings and forgives faults. Agape is the love that never fails.
In a moment, Jack and Lydia, I am going to ask you to make your wedding vows, to promise this kind of love for one another.
But this kind of love isn’t magic, it doesn’t drop from the sky fully formed, it doesn’t appear as soon as you make your vows. It is the kind of love you have to choose. By making your vows today you are saying I am choosing to love you unconditionally and for the rest of my life; to bear with your faults and forgive your failings, and I know that you are choosing to do the same for me. By making these vows, you are promising to love one another just like Jesus loved each one of us – a love so strong you would sacrifice everything for it. By making these vows, you become an image for everyone else of the love between Jesus Christ and his Church.
This kind of love isn’t easy, it’s a choice you have to renew every day, and it’s going to require a lot of hard work.
But, there’s a reason we make these promises in Church, in the presence of God and our families and friends; we aren’t alone. God blessed marriage, he elevated it to the dignity of a sacrament, a powerful sign and an open channel through which God works miracles in our lives if we only ask him. You’ve come into God’s house, surrounded by your friends and family to ask Him to bless what you are doing, to join you together with His love and His power, and to make your marriage joyful and fruitful and full of love.
As it’s customary to give wedding gifts, to a bride and groom, things that will be useful to them in their marriage. As this is my first wedding I wanted to honour that custom, and so I have a gift to give each of you at the end of the service – something I hope will be useful to you both.
I’m going to give each of you one of these; a Rosary from Jerusalem, made with wood from the Holy Land. I’m giving you these so that you will entrust your marriage to Jesus through His blessed Mother. Whenever life gets too hard, whenever you find yourselves getting frustrated, especially with each other, remember these little wooden beads, and pray them. Pray them together. Pray them on your own. Pray for one another. Pray for help with whatever is frustrating you or getting you down. Pray for the gift of love.
May God bless you, and may God bless what you are about to do.
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