We are assembled here in the name of Jesus Christ, and this means that we are assembled here in the presence of God. This is a Christian wedding, certainly, but not simply because it is being held in a Christian church, or because a Christian minister is officiating. Nor is it a Christian wedding just because Scripture is read, or because hymns sung. This is a Christian wedding because we, in genuine evangelical faith, have invoked the name of Jesus Christ, and He is present with us, presiding over all that happens.
This is not said in order to introduce a note of severity, or to bring in a little of our Calvinist gloom . . . although true solemnity is part of it. Rather, we have invoked the name of Jesus Christ so that we might be mindful of the love that Christ has for His church. He is the bridegroom, and His beloved Church is the bride. Not only do we want to mark the love of Christ for the Church, but we want to note both the extent of it and the nature of it.
We want to do this because of the Scripture passage we just heard read aloud for us. Every Christian wedding, and every Christian marriage, is the gospel in microcosm. Now if we allow sin or rebellion to intrude, this means that we are preaching the gospel poorly, or in extreme cases, preaching a false gospel. But there is no way that a man and a woman can come together without saying something about Christ and the church. No married couple can be silent on the subject. We are talking about Christ and His bride whatever we do, and what we say is either going to be the way it ought to be . . . or not. It might be glorious and true, or it might be lame, or it might be pedestrian and mundane.
The purpose of the vows here today is to make sure that the bridegroom and the bride obligate themselves to that which is glorious and true—in the sight of God and of this congregation.
The extent of Christ’s love for His Church was that He loved us to the uttermost, to the point of death on a cross. When Christ loved us, there was no reserve in it. And the nature of Christ’s love for us is seen in the fact that He took responsibility for all the failures, faults, and sins of His people. The just penalty for all our misbehavior was gathered up, laid across His shoulders, and He willingly took on the brunt of the full wrath of God that was due to us for our iniquity.
Men, love your wives like that. Wives, look to your husbands, expecting them to love you like that, and then respond to it with a sweet submissive spirit, as the Church does to Christ. If any married couples here have drifted into another place, it is time to be called back to this gospel pattern of marriage. Fix it in your minds. Christian marriage is all about Christ. Christian marriage is all about the gospel. Christian marriage was designed by God to be the display case that highlights God’s love for fallen sinners.
Brent, you have a glorious path before you. Now a central part of that glory will be the privilege of unlearning some stuff. You have been an established bachelor for a number of years now. You are intelligent, hard-working, and quite accomplished. And as I heard you tell your rhetoric class just the other day, you are something of a micromanager. So the phrase that comes to mind here is rude awakening. Many Christian people who have lived in an unmarried state for some years have come to the mistaken belief that they are unselfish and charitable, their glass full of the milk of human kindness. But this is simply because no one is close enough to spill the milk. This means you are about to discover certain areas of selfishness within you, hitherto unknown. Let’s call it unexplored territory. And this should not come as a shock to you, but you are also going to discover similar areas in your bride. And so your task is therefore to imitate Christ as you take on the responsibility of leading both of you away from all such selfishness, and into the path of the gospel . . . and doing it without privileging your selfishness.
Christiana, you also are bright and accomplished and have been on your own long enough to have established your own habits of independence. Complicating that independence somewhat is the fact that a good bit of the time you were living in Narnia—while Brent was living in China. All this to say that you are likely to have some cross-cultural challenges, in addition to the normal adjustments that all men and women have to make. But while some people regard the Narniad or the Ransom Trilogy as “escape” literature, Tolkien had a good word for those people who don’t like that word escape. He said they were jailers. So approached rightly, all the things you learned in Narnia will transfer straight across, and with no drama.
And for the two of you together, this word of exhortation: You both have been taught all the basics of what it means to have a good marriage. Walk with God. Worship Him every Lord’s Day. Keep your home grounded in the Scriptures. Read the Word together. Pray together daily. Confess your sins, keeping short accounts with one another. Maintain a sense of humor. Men and women are very, very different, but God designed them to fit together, and He did all this apparently on purpose.
In the name of the Father, Son, and Holy Spirit, amen.