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᛭ INI ᛭

Zach, the day’s finally here! Maggie, the day’s finally here! You know each other, but there’s something new, today. Zach, here’s your ball and chain, and Maggie, here’s yours! Okay, not really. But to the world that’s certainly one way of looking at marriage, certainly if things aren’t going so well, but the world view’s marriage as not all that important or restrictive or just some antiquated ceremony or something you can do and do over or do again or divorce, reset, throw it away.

But here’s the truth, the Lord’s doing something far greater than whatever the world thinks marriage is all about. And truth be told it sounds even worse than ball and chain. When the Lord does marriage it means death. Death to self. Death to you and me, mine and yours, death to being alone, never to be alone, and when there’s children never being left alone. That sounds bad, but the Lord doesn’t stop at death. You see, marriage is also resurrection and new life. New life of we and us, ours, and together, and not only us but our family, our children, our home.

Not only has the Lord already done the dying and the rising for you and your sins. No, the Lord has already died and raised you. That was your baptism day, the day the Father and the Son and the Holy Spirit took you to be His own, put His name upon you, and unite you with the death and the resurrection of the Son, our Lord and Savior, IHS Christ. “You have been crucified with Christ it is no longer you who live but Christ who lives in you, and the life you now live in [this] flesh you live by faith in the Son of God, who love you and gave Himself for you.” (Gal 2)

Yes, Christ lives in you, and you live by faith in Him. Yet, He has more to do for you, or rather more that He would do through you. For “you are God’s workmanship, created in Christ IHS for good works, which God prepared beforehand, that you may walk in them.” (Eph 2) And that brings us back to today!

Zach, the day’s finally here! Maggie, the day’s finally here! It’s a new day, which God prepared before hand, a day and the rest of your life with the Lord daily repenting you with His Word, daily speaking forgiveness to you through His Word, and His speaking “I forgive you” to each other through the other. This isn’t restrictive or useless or meaningless or prison or ball and chain or whatever other things our flesh chafes at. No, it’s the life of a baptized, married child of God.

It means death and resurrection. It means the death to you and me, death to yours and mine, death to being alone. In fact, you already died to all that in Baptism, were raised there, too. You are now the Lord’s, Zach. You’re the Lord’s, too, Maggie. And now the Lord is giving you to each other as husband and wife, for a lifetime of new life, the new life of us and ours and together, the new life of loving and serving, living together and forgiving. Just what the Lord intended for you, He’s now giving to you.

And when you don’t measure up? Or she doesn’t measure up? Or he doesn’t measure up? There’s no place for death and regret, for the Lord put you both together for just such occasions. For you to be there for her, and you for him, to say the Lord’s life giving words, “I forgive you.” A lifetime of that. A lifetime of sharing that forgiveness. A lifetime of sharing the Lord’s chalice, His body and blood, that you would live in Him and He in you, and you both would not only “live together in the holy estate of matrimony as God ordained it,” but that you would live forever with Him.

᛭ INI ᛭