Marriage Does Something To You
by Aaron Klinefelter, our friend
Steve and Becky, I am so blessed to participate in this special day. Your relationship has and will bless so many. Those who gather here today are a testimony to that. I know that this day has likely been blur thus far, so I want you to take a minute and turn aroundÖ look out at your family and friends who are here to celebrate and bless you.
In fact, here, since this day, and even this moment, may be seem fuzzy after the fact I brought my digital camera so you could take a few pics of all these people, go ahead snap a few shots, I want to take just a few minutes and share some thoughts with you about marriage. The craziness of this day is, Iím sure, overwhelming. And I’m pretty convinced that that is not only due to the myriad of details and emotions that have been running through your mind and heart. I think weddings are overwhelming for another reason. Whether a wedding is simple or elaborate, inexpensive or “break the bank”, I think that something powerful happens, and is happening right now, at a wedding. This is because marriage is more than an agreement between two romantically inclined lovers, it is even more than a means of procreation.
Marriage does something to you.
I’m not exactly sure how to explain it, but it changes things. And Iím not really talking about external things, the stuff that people can see. It’s the change inside and it happens very slowly over time. When two people enter into this covenant of marriage ñ and I use that word ìcovenantî very deliberately and especially when it is entered into with God as a participant, lives are altered, grace is bestowed, and people notice.
You see, marriage is one of those means of grace that God uses like a furnace to form you into who he is creating you to be. This covenant that you share with one another is a beacon of light, proclaiming by symbol and action that peace is possible. Divisiveness is not our only recourse it may be the hardest thing you ever do, but it may also be the most holy.
I know Steve and Becky have a huge place in their hearts for the marginalized, disenfranchised, and the poor. And I know that their life together has and will address those pressing needs. But I think that on an even deeper level, the simple reality of their union is a testament to God’s transforming power. Their marriage is a testimony to unity in a fragmented world. In time when our society is in flux and unstable, marriage shows up in stark contrast.
And I think that’s pretty much what God has mind for marriage. It shows the world a glimpse into God’s Kingdom. That is not say that there won’t be times of difficulty, discord, or pain there certainly will ñ but when that happens you move together toward reconciliation. When you hurt each other, you choose to forgive. Surely this is a lesson that our world needs hear ñ and marriage is the prophetic lived-symbol of that learning.
But let me be clear to whatever extent that marriage is a testimony God’s reconciliation in the world, it remains such NOT because we chose it to be. As much as we enact our marriages, we are acted upon through them as well. God uses marriage to make us holy. I’m not sure how that sounds. Does that resonate with you? Or repulse you? Perhaps it just seems sort of odd? And, in fact, it is.
It is quite odd indeed, to say that the God of the universe the Alpha, Omega, beginning and end, the creator of all that we see chooses to use an imperfect person in an imperfect relationship set in an imperfect world in order to make us more like him. And yet, I think it is true. If we are to be God’s ambassadors of reconciliation bringing sight to the blind, release to the captive, food to the hungry, rest to the weary ñ then God has to change us. And even more basically, if we are to truly love our spouse in the way Leslie read in the scripture earlier we need help. We need God to enter into our messy, self-consumed lives and awaken us. If we are to be intimate and vulnerable with our spouse, we need God to remove those walls that separate us. You can’t do it alone. God uses marriage to do this transforming work.
I think that a story probably best communicates this process. In C.S. Lewis’ Chronicles of Narnia we meet the boy Eustace. He and his friends witness the death of a dragon, upon which Eustace discovers the dragon’s treasure. This new found wealth consumes him with greed and he becomes a dragon himself. I suppose this would be fine if he was meant to be a dragon, but it is not who he is created to be. The pain and loneliness that this causes is overwhelming and he longs to be set free. Then something happens, it seems like a dream and yet it is real. We hear Eustace telling his friend Edmund that he met a lion who lead him to a well of water. The lion asks him to undress so he can enter the water.
(read story)
I think that this is what marriage is like. The Lion Aslan Christ must peel away those yucky, sinful, restrictive layers so that we can be the boys and girls that he has created us to be. He uses marriage like a claw that frees us from our skin and allows us to truly love one another.
And it is by this redemptive work that our marriages become signposts for the Kingdom of God in a misdirected world.
My prayer for you, Steve and Becky, is that you will allow Christ to peel away everything that separates you from one another and him. In this you will find true freedom, the ability to love one another even more deeply than you do right now, and much peace. May God bless you abundantly and bring you deep and abiding joy. Amen.
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At this time Steve and Becky will exchange their vows, which they have each written, and rings.
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Iíd like to invite Steve and Becky’s house church and anyone who would like to offer prayers of blessing for their marriage to come gather around them. While some of us pray for them here, Adam and Laura will take two small lanterns to the back. Please pass the lanterns from person to person so that they make their way up to the front, ending with Steve and Becky’s moms. These flames represent Steve and Becky’s marriage and as you pass them along it is a symbol of your role in helping them care for that flame. And donít worry, if the candle goes out, simply re-light it and keep passing.
Please join me in celebrating the marriage of Steve and Becky Novotni.
With much joy, I present to you Steve and Becky Novotni
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