The Right Clothes?

[Below is the message given at the wedding of a young couple that happened this weekend.]

Colossians 3:12-17
Luke and Hilary, I’m honored and happy to be here as you enter into marriage today.

This is a remarkable young couple and over the past several months, it’s been a pleasure getting to know them better. Not only do they love each other and their families, they also love the God revealed to the world in Jesus Christ. They truly want to honor Him not just in this time of worship and celebration, but with their lives.

Luke and Hilary, I’d like to speak with you particularly about one of the Bible passages you chose to be read today. 

All of the passage you chose present different facets of marriage, of course. 

The reading from Genesis reminds us that marriage between a man and a woman, two people who are the same but different, who when brought together are complementary and complete, is God’s idea. 

The passage from Ephesians reminds us that marriage is meant to be a relationship of mutual surrender in which husbands and wives love and serve one another as, in Martin Luther’s phrase, “little Christs” who see the Christ in the other. 

Ecclesiastes reminds us that God made us for relationship and that every strong marriage is a cord of three strands: husband, wife, and God. 

But, for now, I want to say a few words about another passage you chose, one which we haven’t read yet. Colossians 3:12-17.

This passage, written in about 60 AD by the apostle Paul, wasn’t originally addressed to a married or engaged couple, but to a church in the ancient Greek city of Colossae. Nonetheless, its words are perfect for two people like you as you begin your married life together.

The passage begins with Paul telling the Colossians: “Therefore, as God’s chosen people, holy and dearly loved, clothe yourselves with compassion, kindness, humility, gentleness and patience.” 

It’s interesting that he doesn’t say, “Be compassionate, kind, humble, gentle, and patient.” 

He didn’t do that because Paul knew that telling the Colossians (or any human being) to be any of those things would be like telling me to be a seven-foot-four power forward. 

Paul is saying that we can't resolve to enact these virtues, but we can clothe ourselves in them, putting them on like we put on our clothes. “Put on compassion,” Paul is saying. “Put on kindness, humility, gentleness, and patience.”

As you are married today, Hilary and Luke, I’m not going to tell you to be compassionate, kind, gentle, or any of the rest toward each other.

But I am telling you three things.

First, if your marriage is going to be all that God intends for it to be and everything that you want it to be, you will have to all these virtues. When two people spend a lifetime together in marriage, Paul’s list of virtues will be as essential as air and water.

The second thing I want to tell you is this: Nobody other than Jesus Himself, God in human flesh, ever exhibited these virtues with any consistency.

The third thing is this: There is a Source from Whom these virtues can be unleashed in our lives, sometimes in spite of ourselves. That Source is the one true God of the universe Who came into this world to take the punishment for sin we deserve on a cross, then rose from the dead to give life with God that never ends to all who trust in Him. By grace through faith in Jesus Christ, we are saved from ourselves, from our sins, and from death. 

And this same God, Who loves the two of you and everyone gathered here for this holy, happy moment with a passion and perfection none of us can imagine, can also daily refill you with the virtues with which Paul told the Colossian Christians to clothe themselves. 

God alone can give married couples all that we need not only to make our marriages work, but also to be the kinds of people to whom our marriage partners want to be married.

And how does God do this for us? 

You know the answer: By faith in Jesus Christ, by daily surrender to Him, by daily giving our marriages to Him, by daily coming to Him to confess our sins and our needs and to be filled again with His grace and power and love. To put all of that in its simplest terms: by letting Jesus Christ love us to life. 

This is really what Paul is talking about when he also tells the Colossians: “Let the peace of Christ rule in your hearts...Let the message of Christ dwell among you richly as you teach and admonish one another with all wisdom through psalms, hymns, and songs from the Spirit, singing to God with gratitude in your hearts…”

Hilary and Luke, let Jesus Christ be the center of your marriage, let Him fill you with His love, cover you with His grace, give you life with God. 

Trust in Him and He will make your marriage a blessing to you and to everyone fortunate enough to know you in the years to come. Amen

[I'm the pastor of Living Water Lutheran Church in Centerville, Ohio.]

When Jesus Made My Muslim Friend "Feel Good"

Today's installment from the Our Daily Bread devotional speaks of what we do for others when we praise God. That set me to thinking. I wrote the following in linking to the piece over on Facebook:

A Muslim friend once asked me to come to a funeral visitation. His brother-in-law had just died. I was able to show up just before the public calling hours began and before a class I was teaching that night.

I spent some time with my friend and his family. He then guided me to another room in the funeral home so that we could speak privately. He thanked me for being there and then asked me what I believed happened to human beings at the point of death.

Long ago, I learned to be upfront about what Jesus, the Bible, and the Church teach about issues when my non-Christian friends ask. So, I told him that while I couldn't know everything for sure and that while I was certain that God will respect the choices of those who overtly reject Christ during this lifetime, one day we will all stand in the presence of the risen Jesus for "judgment."

But judgment will not depend on our "good works" or on being "nice people." I know myself, at least, and I am aware of all the sinful thoughts I've harbored, all the inhumane deeds I've done. I know my sins and that no cosmic eraser is big enough to alter the simple fact that I'm incapable of being righteous, incapable of being good enough to live--let alone, stand--in the presence of the perfect God of creation. I don't deserve heaven with God.

In a very real sense, Jesus won't even judge us. Jesus said, "God did not send the Son [that's Jesus] into the world to condemn the world, but in order that the world might be saved through Him. Those who believe [trust] in Him are not condemned; but those who do not believe are condemned already, because they have not believed in the Name of the only Son of God" (John 3:17-18). We will judge ourselves, effectually, and be judged on whether we have dared to trust the goodness of Jesus, whether we have given up on trusting in ourselves or the world more than we trust in God, whether we repudiate our sins and grasp hold of Jesus Christ as our only hope.

Martin Luther put it well. At the judgment, Luther pointed out, Jesus will look on two different throngs of people, both throngs composed of sinners. But one throng will stand naked in their sin. The other throng will stand covered with Jesus. My hope for eternity, I told my friend that night in the funeral home, was not based on my works or my goodness, which are negligible at best, but on Jesus Christ alone.

I went on to explain that my relationship with Christ gave me confidence and hope for the living of each day, it softened my heart to the needs of others for justice and compassion, and it emboldened to me serve in Jesus' Name without regard to the opinions of others. (That is, my relationship with Christ does these things when I don't allow myself to spend too much time contemplating my own navel, worrying about my priorities, or worshiping at the altar of Mark.)

It wasn't clear to me how my friend would react to my answer to his question. In answering him, I tried to abide by the words of Saint Peter who told the oppressed churches of Asia Minor: "Always be ready to make your defense to anyone who demands an accounting for the hope that is in you; yet do it with gentleness and reverence" (1 Peter 3:15-16). I wanted my friend to know that, like God, I loved him and cared about his family, whether he chose to trust in Jesus or not.

We talked about some other things. Then, it was time for me to go. I hugged my friend. As we approached the door of the funeral home, with tears in his eyes, he said, "Mark, I don't know what it was exactly, but something you said back there made me feel really good."

The truth about Jesus Christ can make us feel miserable, of course. Knowing that a just man who committed no sin died on a cross for my sins is an indictment of every member of the human race. Our sins put Jesus on that cross He didn't deserve. We deserved it instead.

But the compassion of Christ, the fact that He undertook this act of self-sacrifice for us and that all who repudiate their own sin and trust in Him (and commit themselves to the lifetime struggle against their own sin to which all Christian saints/sinners are committed) "makes us feel good." It brings joy and peace and hope!

The Bible says, "The wages of sin is death, but the free gift of God is eternal life in Christ Jesus our Lord" (Romans 6:23). And in another spot it says this gift comes to all with faith (Romans 3:21-26).

Whenever we praise God, as I tried to do in that funeral home room with my friend, we really do it for others. (This is true, even in our private times with the Bible and prayer to God, because these things fortify our faith and fill us again with the infectious love, grace, and truth of the God we know in Jesus.) Our gratitude to God for Jesus Christ, swelling up in words and deeds, as well as in "psalms, hymns, and spiritual songs" can bring hope and strength to all people...and it may plant the seed of a new life that will last forever with God. 

Share Jesus! The world needs Him...and Jesus is counting on you to help others "feel good" for all eternity!