Married to Jesus
Wedding sermon for Jack and Izabella Petrick
Revelation 19:7 Let us rejoice and be
glad and give him glory! For the wedding of the Lamb has come, and his bride
has made herself ready.
I have
seen some wonderful examples of married love throughout my ministry. A husband
holding back his wife’s hair as she pukes out her guts from the chemotherapy. A
wife taking care of the children, the dogs, and the finances while her husband
puts in long hours in the military. A husband visiting his wife every day in
the nursing home, even though with her dementia she doesn’t know who he is or
what she means to him. An elderly widow praying to Jesus to take her home so
that she can be with her two beloveds – her Savior and her husband.
Jack
and Izabella, this is the kind of love that we all want for you. A love that is
not based on feelings or emotions, but on commitment and faithfulness. A love
that takes seriously the marriage promises you make in God’s house today – to
be faithful to one another, to cherish each other, to help one another in
sickness and in health, to remain together until God parts you by death.
I’ll be
honest with you. After being married for over 20 years, plus blessing the
marriage of so many couples, while also having my heart break at the breakup of
so many marriages, I want you to know that marriage is not for the weak. Adjustments
are continuous. If it were not for Christ holding your marriage together, some
emotional moments could be the breaking point. The rugged peaks and the
threatening valleys of marriage are not for the faint-hearted. Committed
Christian marriage is reserved for those who cling to Christ’s redeeming love.
The way I found out that Jack and Izabella were
getting married was on Facebook. (Way to keep your pastor in the loop, Big
Guy.) Jack announced his engagement, so I private messaged Jack saying, “Congratulations
on the engagement. Are you planning on having your pastor conduct the wedding
ceremony?” Jack said that they were just going to go to the courthouse. I told
him that was fine, but I would love to have the ceremony in church where we ask
for God’s blessing upon their marriage with prayers, a sermon, and God’s Word. We’re
all here today because Jack said, “I would love that!”
On Tuesday, the three of us spent 4 ½ hours studying
God’s Word together for their in-depth pre-marriage counseling. We discovered
what God desires and gives for a successful Christian marriage.
But none of those pre-wedding preparations are
anything compared to what you will be going through for the rest of your
married lives.
The wedding verse I chose for Jack and Izabella is a
fitting one for their wedding text: “Let us rejoice and be glad and
give him glory! For the wedding of the Lamb has come, and his bride has made
herself ready.” It demonstrates that
today is not about them, but about Jesus. We might wrongly put them at the
center of our attention, but with their wedding verse, the attention goes where
it rightly belongs – on Jesus. He is the Bridegroom, Jack and Izabella and all
of us within the Christian Church are the Bride. He is the only One who will
keep their marriage strong, healthy and vibrant.
Jack and Izabella, you’ve only been dating for a year
or so. Yet, when the Lord allows you to meet the right person … you marry that
person … and move to the other side of the world.
In a few moments, you will be married to each other.
But you are not only being married to each other, you are also being married to
Jesus. He is the One who will give commitment to your wedding vows. Otherwise,
the first time you have a disagreement, you will think you made a mistake
today. He is the One who will grant you faithfulness to one another. Otherwise,
when the feelings of love start to wane, you will look for love in all the
wrong places. He is the One who is the foundation of your wedding. Otherwise,
without Jesus, you will bicker, you will fight, you will fall apart, and get
divorced.
The way to prevent failure in your marriage to one
another is to remain faithful in your marriage to Jesus Christ. Your wedding text
speaks about the bride making herself ready, prepared, dressed properly for her
wedding.
Hopefully, all of us know better than to come to a
wedding dressed in cut-off jean shorts, a tank top, and flip flops. Whether we
are in the wedding party or an invited guest, we want to honor the wedding
couple by wearing our best.
As important as Jack and Izabella are on this day, all
of us are invited to a much more important wedding – the wedding of the Lamb of
Jesus Christ. He is the eternal Bridegroom. He has chosen us to be His Bride
for eternity.
Just like we honor Jack and Izabella by being properly
dressed for today, so we honor Jesus by being properly dressed for our wedding
to Him. We wear our best. The difference is that you went and picked out your
clothes to wear today. Jesus has laid out your clothes and gets you dressed for
your wedding to Him. He puts you in His very best.
Uniforms, wedding dresses, suits and spring dresses
are great for today. Jesus has provided each of us with a special wedding
garment to wear today – to wear every day – and to wear throughout eternity. St. Paul 3:27 ). You were given your wedding garment at the font at
your Baptism. You were clothed with the righteousness and perfection of Christ.
His righteousness and perfection that washes away all your sins, all your
filth, all your unworthiness and gives you a place in His wedding.
Jesus did not come in righteousness and perfection to
show us how to achieve those things for ourselves, but to go to the cross to
provide them for us. He gives us life by dying our death. He gives us His seat
of honor at the wedding feast by being forsaken, tossed out of the Trinity, and
bound hand and foot at Calvary ’s cross. He
washes our filthy clothes clean through His shed blood.
Jesus is the faithful Bridegroom who didn’t wait for
us to clean up ourselves (because we can’t). Instead, He came and laid down His
life for His bride – you and me – to cleanse us and make us His pure and holy Bride.
That we might have something to wear to the wedding feast.
But Jesus did not just wash us one time long ago in
our Baptism. And that’s good because we keep getting our wedding garment dirty
– dirty with cursing, gossip, laziness, pride, selfishness, anger, and whatever
else we do on a daily basis. We keep rolling around in the sin and dirt and
filth of this world. We keep making our nice, white, holy wedding dress filthy
again.
Even though we were baptized only once, Jesus has
provided us with a continual and constant way back to our Baptism, back to His
cleansing and life, and that is repentance. We come to God filthy with our vile
and offensive sins; we confess those sins; then He purifies us again with the
words of His absolution; He makes us clean with His forgiveness; He washes us
over and over again as we return to the baptismal font to have the one-time,
but continual, waters of Baptism pour over us. As often as we need it. For the
promises He made to us in our Baptism are not just for the past, but for the
present and for the future. We repent of who we are and what we have done, and
we will always be clothed with Christ and what He has done for us. We are once
again dressed as His pure, holy and radiant Bride.
Preparations for a wedding are often filled with
frenzy and agitation. But preparation for being married to Jesus means slowing
down, contemplating our sinfulness and repenting of our filth. It means
rejoicing that Jesus has chosen us to be His Bride. He has washed us clean. He
has made us His own.
During His passion, Jesus made His marriage promises
to us. As He had His back torn apart by the scouring, He made His vows of
faithfulness to us. As He hung dying on the tree of the cross, He made His vows
of cherishing us above all else. As He was forsaken by His Heavenly Father, He
made His vows of supporting us always with His grace and forgiveness. As He
breathed His last on Golgotha ’s hill, He made
His vows that nothing will separate us from Him, not even death.
Jack and Izabella, today you stand before God’s altar
to make your vows of marriage to one another. That is awesome! But even more
so, you stand here before God’s baptismal font where Jesus made His vows to
clothe you in His baptismal righteousness. You stand here before God’s
communion rail where Jesus feeds you with the marriage feast of the Lamb. You
stand here before God’s pulpit and lectern where Jesus speaks to you in the
love letter of His holy Word. You stand here before God’s altar, where you make
your vows of faithfulness to one another; but more importantly where Jesus
makes His vows of eternal faithfulness to each of you.
Jesus is the Bridegroom. You are the Bride. Jack, you
will be married to Izabella. Izabella, you will be married to Jack. But each of
you are married to Jesus. Let us rejoice and be glad and give Him glory!
Amen.
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