Sunday, January 20, 2008

How to Build a Marriage

[This message was shared during the wedding of Natalie and Andrew held in the chapel of Ashland University, Ashland, Ohio, on January 19. The groom was, as a boy, a member of the first parish I served as pastor.]

Psalm 100
1 John 4:7-12
Natalie, Andrew: I’m honored to be here with you today.

As we stand here together, I’m reminded that back when I was Andrew’s pastor, he was shorter than me. I suppose that’s another way of saying what I’m sure you’ve heard many old people say and which I’ll say again: Life goes by fast.

All of which leads me to the only piece of advice I’m going to give you today. It’s this: Build your lives and build your marriage on Jesus Christ.

I could bore you with the details of statistics showing that marriages in which the couples make it a point to pray regularly and to worship together regularly three-hundred times more likely to be happily and enduringly married, but I prefer to focus on my personal experience.

Ann and I have been married for thirty-three years now, a monument to her patience and love. But where did that patience and love come from? The key can be found in one of the verses of today’s reading from First John. It says, “In this is love, not that we loved God but that He loved us and sent His Son to be the atoning sacrifice for our sins.”

The glow from a wedding day and the excitement from a honeymoon have caused many a couple to forget that their capacity to love one another and more importantly, their capacity to forgive one another, doesn’t come from inside of themselves. The feelings from this period of your lives, no matter how wonderful, cannot sustain you or your marriage through the inevitable and unknown challenges of the years ahead. You will have to import the tough love you need to have the beautiful marriage everyone here foresees for the two of you today. If I could summarize Saint John’s advice for you today, it would be this: Love one another and tap into the One Whose supply of love is never ending.

Give your lives and your marriage to God we know in Jesus Christ. Irrespective of the passage of time, the affirmation from our first lesson will always be true: “For the Lord is good; His steadfast love endures forever, and His faithfulness to all generations”!

1 comment:

Nancy said...

Beautiful Pastor Mark.
What a blessing it was to
that couple to have you officiate
their wedding.