Sermon - Epiphany II 2019 - John 2:1-11

Marriage is under assault. It’s not just so-called gay marriage which is the issue, that’s more or less a symptom of the underlying problem. The underlying problem is the disdain and the rejection of the institution of marriage as a whole. This really does matter, it’s an issue of utterly vital importance. It’s significant, because the earthly marriage of a husband to his wife, is a divine glimpse into the glory of the heavenly marriage of the Christ to His bride the church.

That marriage matters to God is evident from this His first miracle Jesus performs upon earth. “On the third day there was a wedding at Cana in Galilee, and the mother of Jesus was there. Jesus also was invited to the wedding with his disciples.” Among all of the miracles Jesus performed, such as a casting out demons, healing the sick, raising the dead, the first miracle He did was to bless a marriage by turning water into wine. The celebration of marriage is so important that He would make sure there is an abundance of wine at the wedding feast. 

Indeed, marriage is not only an earthly civic matter as so many think, but marriage is firstly instituted by God in the garden of Eden. “Then the LORD God said, “It is not good that the man should be alone; I will make him a helper fit for him.”” Out of all of the good things God created, there is but one thing which is not good yet, namely, that Adam was alone. So God created a helper fit for Adam, He created a woman, Eve. God’s divine ordering for creation is built upon the foundation of one man and one woman becoming one flesh in holy matrimony.

When God created a help meet corresponding to Adam, He didn’t create another man, He didn’t make someone identical to Adam, He created a woman. God created husbands to love, serve, protect, and provide not for themselves, but for another. The basic perversion of homosexuality comes down to the fact that it’s love of self instead of love of other. Instead of loving one who corresponds and fits with you, you love yourself, you love your own body,  instead of the body of one who fits you just as God had given to Adam.

This now begins to hit at the core of marriage as God has instituted it. A husband has been created to love and serve his wife, just as St. Paul directs us to do so: “Husbands, let each one of you love his wife as himself, and let the wife see that she respects her husband.” So this divine mandate of marriage has been set for the good of human civilization. In fact, marriage and the family is the foundation, the primary building block, of human civilization.

Marriage has been created so that husbands and wives can love and support one another according to each one’s specific needs. Marriage is more than just emotions and feelings. Marriage is about love, service, and care through selfless sacrifice for another. We have this sinful notion that marriage is about nothing more than fulfilling our own emotions and feelings. But instead marriage is about sacrificing ourselves to serve another, and another sacrificing themself to serve us. 

But marriage is about more than just the husband and wife. God furthermore created marriage for the good of the rearing of children. Among all creatures on earth, no other creature requires such a long period of care as intensely as do human children.

So when God bound man and woman together as husband and wife, He also blessed them by blessing their union with Children: “God blessed them. And God said to them, ‘Be fruitful and multiply and fill the earth and subdue it.’” God created marriage for the procreation of children, indeed, God’s first and foremost blessing of marriage is kids. Like the psalmist says, “Children are a heritage from the Lord, the fruit of the womb a reward. Like arrows in the hand of a warrior are the children of one’s youth. Blessed is the man who fills his quiver with them!”

A husband and a wife are united in one flesh not only to serve each other, but to serve their children whom God has entrusted to their care. For this reason, a parent’s job is never done, because they are to keep watch over their children and love them just as their heavenly Father loves them. Children are a trust, a heritage from the Lord. They’re not ours to pick and choose and do with as we well please; they belong to God for they are His progeny, and we are their stewards.

Thus marriage on earth has been instituted by God for our Good. Anything that denigrates and despises this good blessing of marriage ought to be avoided as the vile enemy it is. Whether it’s a joke about referring to one’s spouse as the old ball and chain, considering sex and living together before marriage as necessary as test-driving a used car, treating your spouse like an outlet for your own fleshly desires, attempting to marry your own flesh through homosexuality, desiring people other than your own spouse through adultery and pornography, treating marriage like a temporary station as you jump from spouse to spouse because of divorce when one becomes less enjoyable, or simply failing to serve the other and sacrifice yourself for them. All of these things are wicked and sinful, and we must avoid them if we are to hold marriage in honor among us.

Because marriage matters, because Jesus matters. Quite regularly, the prophets of the Old Testament, such as Ezekiel, Isaiah, and Hosea portray God as the groom and His church as the bride. God is not so vain as we all are. When men and women are looking for a potential spouse, they look for someone highly adorned with particular beauty that attracts them. They get to know one another over the course of many dates, essentially interviewing the other to see if they live up to their expectations. Any fault we discover is another strike against them. Potentially if we discover too many faults, we dump them to the curb and move on to the next date.

But not God. He does not have His church come to Him as His bride because He has longed for her beauty, or the bloom of her body. On the contrary, the bride He has brought into the wedding hall is deformed and ugly, thoroughly and shamefully sordid, and practically wallowing in the very mire of her sins. God looks at us, His bride, and sees the most hideous, faithless, adulterous body on earth. He sees us for all of our faults and failures and He loves us. We the bride look upon Him, the Lamb of God, who takes away the sin of the world. 

Jesus is the bridegroom and we the church are His ugly deformed bride. We are a people with great and utter shame. We have spoken ill of our spouses, hurt them with our words and our deeds, we think unkindly of them, we hate the burden of marriage, we hate the burden of children, we hate to sacrifice ourselves for another, we hate the one whom God has made us one flesh with. Jesus sacrifices Himself for His bride, for you.

In the baptismal font, in these waters, you entered into the nuptial chambers and were wed to Christ, became one body with Him. You did not choose Him, but in your blindness He chose you. His desire was for you. So Jesus, the church’s bridegroom, sacrificed Himself, laid down His life for yours. In selfless love, your groom sacrificed everything in order to serve you and bring you out of the squalor of your sin. In a sort of divine makeover, Jesus took away your ugliness, your shameful and sordid past, your wallowing in sins, and made you holy and perfect in His eyes. 

“Christ loved the church and gave himself up for her, that he might sanctify her, having cleansed her by the washing of water with the word, so that he might present the church to himself in splendor, without spot or wrinkle or any such thing, that she might be holy and without blemish.”

So being washed clean of your sin, you have been clothed in the white wedding gown of your salvation, you have come to the great wedding feast of the Lamb and His bride. “Let us rejoice and exult and give Him the glory, for the marriage of the Lamb has come.” For here at this feast, you witness an ever greater miracle than that of Cana. This is no mere water turned to wine, but at this wedding feast today the wine is turned to the blood of the Lamb. With His blood He washes your stained filthy rags and clothes you in fine linen, bright and pure; with His righteousness His clothes you. 

As the angel declares: “Blessed are those who are invited to the marriage supper of the Lamb.” Blessed are you, for you are the ugly bride made beautiful and brought to the marriage feast of the Lamb; you’re not only invited, this is your wedding. So marriage really does matter, because every marriage is a glimpse into the love and sacrifice of God our Bridegroom who gives everything in order to save us. So husbands, love your wives; wives, respect your husbands. Why? Because Jesus loves His church and gave Himself up for her.