Marriage As a Living Image of God's Character

Delivered at the wedding of Emily Banks and B.J. Krug

All love has its source in God’s love. All relationships are extensions of God’s relational character. We love because God loves. We nurture relationships with others because God nurtures a relationship with all creation. As God’s children, these two activities are in our blood. All life is wrapped up in love and right relationships things.

Our being able to love and to receive love in relationships is made possible because God seeks a relationship with us. And the world comes to know this by the presence of that reality being seen in us. As we just heard the words of Jesus, “that they may be one, as we are one…so that the world may know that you have sent me and have loved them even as you have loved me.”

And one of the ways in which the world is made aware of this reality is not in eloquent sermons, or philosophical essays, but in relationships. As much as Jesus loved to talk, he demonstrates in this prayer that the way in which the world comes to know one of the most important realities about God is through relationships that are one in love.

This is why some traditions call marriage a sacrament, which is a fancy word for an outward expression of a divine reality. To which people from our tradition respond, ‘yea, that too.’ Of course, some would argue that everything in our life ought to be an outward expression of a divine reality, and in that case everything is a sacrament. And if everything is a outward expression of a divine reality, then there is no point in distinguishing one over and against another. Why point to marriage as a sacrament when everything is, and ought to be, a sacrament.

Indeed, as Christians, every aspect of our life ought to be lived in such a way that it expresses the nature of God. But Jesus reminds us that there is something unique about people being one. And this image of being one is seen most intimately in the context of marriage.

“For this reason a man and a woman will leave father and mother, and the two will become one flesh.”

And so what is unique about marriage is that it is a living and active sign of the divine reality of God’s love found in his relationship with all creation through Christ. God’s love is not a single act, but an eternal reality that is perpetually nurtured.

And so it is in marriage, this living, active relationship that reveals and proclaims God’s character in a way that cannot be proclaimed in other places. This is your primary responsibility.

This ceremony is not a rote procedure, or a mere formality but a time to declare to God our awareness of this reality. This is also a time for us all to make known that the nurturing and sustaining of this divine reality is not yours alone, but one that we all share – from our youngest child to our most seasoned elder. All of us have a stake in the cultivation this relationship so as to maintain a faithful proclamation of the character of God.

Our hope is that you will live this reality. May this marriage be God’s reply to Jesus’ prayer in the garden. May you take the love that God has given you through Christ, and give it to each other through the power of the Holy Spirit, so that the world may know of God’s redeeming love.