These are the texts Jesse and Lindsay chose for their wedding: Colossians 3:12-17 & John 15:9-17 and they are about the most perfect texts anyone has ever chosen anywhere for a wedding (but I have no strong feelings one way or another!! And, by the way…No, they are not the texts Cliff and I had read at our wedding…oh well, live and learn). The Colossians one says, in brief, "Above all [holy and beloved], clothe yourselves with love, which binds everything together in perfect harmony. And let the peace of Christ rule in your hearts." And the John passage says this: "[Jesus said] 'As the Father has loved me, so I have loved you; abide in my love…so that my joy may be in you, and that your joy may be complete…This is my commandment, that you love one another as I have loved you.'"
A pastor I know, Frank Honeycutt, wrote an article eight years ago for The Lutheran magazine (June, 2003) called "Lasting Love." It's about marriage and the taking the "long view" (Another friend of mine, Cheri Williams reminded me and a group of folks in a "marriage enrichment class" that the key to marriage is remembering to take the "long view." She says that sometimes it may seem like years go by when things are blasé or even hard in a marriage. But over a lifetime…those times do not fall into consideration). Anyway, back to Frank's article. In it he says: "All too soon one learns things about a new husband that weren't known before – things that will drive you nuts if you think about them too hard. All too soon one discovers wacky facets of a new wife's personality that were never really noticed when dating…Marriage tends to knock the stars out of our eyes. Well, what then? Just before he died, Jesus gave some powerful advice…It's about the best advice that couples can hear too. Jesus said: 'I give you a new commandment, that you love one another. Just as I have loved you, you also should love one another.' The little word 'as' in this context may be the most challenging in the entire Bible. The love Jesus describes here is less like a Hallmark card and more like a cross. The best marriages I know," Frank says, "are marked by a love that looks quite a bit like a cross – love that is sacrificial," love that gives for the sake of the other, that stays with and beside and abides and cheers and cries and waits.
Before Jesse and Lindsay ever walked into the chapel at Lutheridge yesterday, it was already filled with more than 200 people who had been "abiding" with them their entire lives. Before they ever arrived, they had lived surrounded by this kind of "Jesus love" that endures and overcomes the deaths that it will face over the course of a lifetime together, a love that will endure the "stars falling from our eyes" as we learn that what we once found charming in our fiancé(e) is now annoying in our spouse. Before they ever opened their mouths to speak their vows, they had been clothed in this kind of love…A love that dwells in peace, even through the tragedies that a lifetime can know. A love that binds a variety of voices together into a harmony that sings perfectly along the journey of a lifetime (NB: harmony comes when different voices sing different notes…Not when they all sing the same note...That would be monotony.). A love whose goal is complete joy. Abiding is key. In a world where everything is temporary, there is a necessary permanence to abiding. It connotes steadfastness and security, dependability and integrity. It is what God does and who God is, walking and holding and comforting and cheering and receiving (like the one in whose arms you most like to be held, maybe especially when you have been your most annoying, or known your greatest tragedy, or suffered your most severe abuse). The world today, at least the world I live in, does not necessarily trust this kind of presence…the kind that is both good and dependable/steadfast/abiding. And yet, it is the presence for which it most desperately hungers (All you have to do is pay attention to the myriad ways we feed our various hungers to see the desperation). And that can make our calling a challenge. But, oh well. It is the calling to which we are called, sisters and brothers…To be Christ's abiding presence (in the world – to be sure, and sometimes even more "challengingly" in our own families)… Holding, receiving, embracing. It is the way we have been loved, and it is the way we are called to love.
Thanks Jesse and Lindsay, for letting me be part of your story.
Blessings on your marriage ~
Sara
p.s. Here is another thing I read that made real sense to me (apologies to the author. I don't remember who it was): "Understanding happens when we are present to the other, when we abide with her or him as Christ abides with us." We could all use a little more understanding.
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