“Holy Marriage”
John 2:1-11; Ephesians 5:22-32
Epiphany 2, January 15, 2012
Mt. Zion Lutheran Church
Greenfield, WI

✠ In the name of the Father and of the Son and of the Holy Spirit ✠

Today’s Gospel depicts Jesus taking part in and adding to the joy of a wedding feast in Cana of Galilee. While this Gospel deals with much more than marriage, I’m going to follow the lead of Martin Luther as he preached on this passage of Scripture and speak this year especially about the divine gift and institution of holy marriage.

On the surface it would seem that the problems we have with marriage and sexuality in our day are completely different than the ones that Martin Luther was dealing with in his day, at the end of the Middle Ages. After all, back then celibacy was something that was publicly honored. The people who were held up as being examples of leading the best possible life were monks and nuns. By deciding not to get married and instead to leave the world and devote themselves to God, they were the ones who supposedly pleased God the most. In our day, on the other hand, chastity is something of a joke. Waiting until you’re married is considered weird, and living together before marriage (if you get married at all) is considered perfectly normal, even among some Christians who should know better, who should know that all sex outside of marriage is sin, plain and simple.

But the fundamental problem, both then and now, is really basically the same. In both cases, God’s gift of marriage is rejected and despised. In both cases, people think they’ve figured out a better way than what God has given and designed, even if the results may be on opposite ends of the spectrum. In one case, sexuality is completely repressed in an effort to achieve some supposedly higher holiness; in the other case, it’s indulged in a worldly way. But at the end of the day the result is the same. God’s good gift of marriage, where He gives a man and a woman to each other, is belittled and even trampled on.

How often do we hear marriage talked about as the gift from God that it is and that it’s intended to be, the life-long self-giving union of a man and a woman? How much do we do to promote that to our children and grandchildren? Certainly there are crosses to bear within this vocation, as in every vocation, but that’s part of what it means to love. Instead, the usual messages that are heard are largely negative, how it limits your freedom and stifles self-expression and such. Our own failures in this regard–our failure to trust in God and receive His gifts as He gives them, is something for which we must all repent.

Whether we’re married or single, God teaches us in His Word to honor marriage highly. He who created it in the beginning blesses it here with His presence at Cana. Through marriage God seeks to protect us from the evils of selfishness, loneliness, lust, doubt, and self-sufficiency. And He works through it to preserve society, so that the saving Gospel of Christ may be preached.

First of all, selfishness threatens to destroy us. In marriage God works to protect us from this. He places a flesh and blood spouse directly before our eyes, with specific and real needs. God calls us out of a self-absorbed life that invents its own good works, into a devoted life that takes care of the spouse God has given. A husband is to love his wife as Christ loved the Church and sacrificed Himself for her; a wife is to submit to her husband as to the Lord. In this way, God both builds up His people and beats down selfishness.

Secondly, lust threatens to ruin us. The book of Proverbs consistently refers to sexual enticements as one of the chief ways in which people are led into ruin. In marriage God seeks to protect us from the destructiveness of lust. St. Paul (who was single, by the way) counsels all who suffer from lust to marry, for this is God’s good and gracious provision for rendering affection one to the other. One of God’s blessings in marriage is the dampening and controlling of lust.

Thirdly, loneliness threatens to destroy us. Through the working of the devil, the world, and our own sinful flesh, we become isolated and cut off. In marriage God protects us from loneliness. He gives us a companion for comfort and camaraderie in life. In the Garden of Eden, God said, “It is not good that man should be alone; I will make him a helper comparable to him.” Adam received Eve as the God-given companion who brought him completeness: Such is God’s intention for marriage also today.

Fourthly, doubt threatens to destroy us. Although we would like to believe that we always make sound decisions in life, we know that sin clouds our heart and mind. How can we be certain that we have chosen the right partner for life? In marriage God protects us from such doubt. A man and woman may in freedom choose to marry each other, but hidden beneath their choice is God’s action. God is at work in the wedding, joining the man and woman to each other. He’s the one who binds them together through the authorities that He has established. In this way God protects marriage from doubt with the certainty that He is the One who has made the union.

Fifthly, self-sufficiency threatens to destroy us. As it is fallen humanity thinks it can do just fine on its own without God. Without the calling of serving a spouse in marriage, sinners would perceive even less need for God. In marriage God protects us from such misguided self-sufficiency. He calls husband and wife to the holy vocation of serving each other in Christ. And when husband and wife fail each other, God puts His law to work. He confronts their self-centeredness and their faltering service. He afflicts their consciences and disturbs their self-sufficiency. In short, God drives them to depend on Him. He drives them back to Himself, to find forgiveness, strength, and hope in Christ. Confession and Absolution, the preaching of the Gospel, and the Body and Blood of Christ become their lifeblood, making them right with God and able again to serve each other.

Finally, God preserves society through marriage. Without this institution, the basic unit of society, the family, would crumble. There would be no familial love, only conflict and chaos and self-will. To forestall such evil, God established and blessed marriage from the beginning, “Be fruitful and multiply; fill the earth and subdue it.” With this creative word, God continues to bless the union of husband and wife so that children are conceived and born. Husband and wife are given to serve not only each other but also their children by protecting, providing for, and nurturing their children in the training and instruction of the Lord. Founded upon God’s gift of family, human society can be peaceably ordered. And this in turn gives a good context for the saving Word of Christ to be preached and taught both in the church and the home.

All of this is God’s good gift. And all of this is meant to drive us to the greater reality that marriage points to. For the fact of the matter is, whether a Christian is single or married, divorced, widowed, young or old, as members of the Church we all are in a marital relationship that rescues and saves us. For the Church has been made one with her holy Groom, Jesus. She is the betrothed of Christ. In the Epistle today Paul spent a lot of time talking about husbands and wives and marriage. And then he concludes his comments by saying, “What I’m really talking about though is Christ and the Church.” Earthly marriage is a sign of the greater and perfect love that God has for His people and the heavenly union that exists between them.

From all eternity, before marriage was instituted, it was planned that Christ would lay down His life for His woman, sacrifice Himself for the church, to save her from her fall into sin. Even as Adam was put into a deep sleep, and Eve was created from his side, so Jesus was put into the sleep of death on the cross, that this new Eve might be created from the sacramental blood and water that flowed from His side. St. John calls the church “the elect Lady,” chosen and redeemed by Christ. For Christ loved the church and gave Himself up for her, that He might sanctify and cleanse her by the washing of water with the Word, that He might present her to Himself a glorious church, not having any spot or wrinkle or any such thing, but that she should be holy and without blemish. For those whom sin has contaminated, or whose marriages and families are broken, Jesus shed His blood to cleanse you of every sin; He sanctified you and made you holy for Himself by the water and the Word of Baptism. You stand before God spotless and perfect in the family of His Church, His holy bride.

Just as husband and wife are given in marriage to become one flesh, so our Lord unites Himself to us and makes Himself one flesh with us–one flesh to the extent that what is His is now yours as members of His body. So if He is the Son of God, then you are called sons of God. If He holds in His hand the riches and treasures of heaven, those treasures are also yours to hold and take to heart. If He is the Righteous One, then you are declared righteous before God. If the death He dies no longer holds Him in the grave, then neither can death hold you in the grave. The Bride shares in everything that belongs to the Groom. That’s how marriage works with Jesus.

This is the joy of the eternal wedding feast that we are given a glimpse of in the Gospel. The ritual washing water of the Law is turned into the joyous wedding wine of the Gospel. The best is saved for last, and that best is Jesus–and His forgiveness and mercy and life–which are all for you. Even now in Divine Service the heavenly groom, our Lord Christ, comes to His bride to comfort her. He speaks to you His words of love. He remembers the commitment He made to you at Baptism. He gives Himself to you in Holy Communion that you may share fully in His life. And so the Scriptures say, “As a bridegroom rejoices over his bride, so will your God rejoice over you.”

So set aside your doubts and fears and sorrows. Jesus rejoices over you, to have you as His own. Come in faith to His table, that you may partake in the eternal wedding feast. “Blessed are those who are invited to the wedding supper of the Lamb!”

✠ In the name of the Father and of the Son and of the Holy Spirit ✠

(With thanks to Chaplain Jonathan Shaw for some of the above)