Sermon for the Twelfth Sunday After Pentecost
Beautiful… Simply Beautiful (Reprise)
Grace, mercy, and peace to you from God our Father and the Lord Jesus Christ!
Amen. In today’s Epistle, St. Paul uses marriage as a way of speaking about the
great love that your Christ has for you, His holy Church.
Dear Christian friends,
Like any other human relationship, marriage can provide a person with
great comfort, stability, and joy. Also like any other human relationship,
marriage can inflict upon a person deep wounds from which it could take years
to recover—if recovery is even possible.
· Wounds inflicted and wounds received by the way husband treats wife or
wife treats husband—or the way both treat each other;
· Wounds inflicted by the intrusion of a third party;
· Wounds of having lost marriage, to death or to divorce or to
disinterest;
· Wounds of regret over what never was—either in marriage or in the
absence of marriage;
· Wounds caused by watching a loved one’s marriage fall apart, either by
slow erosion or by sudden explosion;
· Wounds of sorrow, wounds of resentment, wounds of memory, wounds of
longing for something you no longer possess (whether you are married or not).
Today’s Epistle from Ephesians chapter 5 is, of course, one of the regular
Bible passages to use for Wedding Days. The marriage rite in the Lutheran
Service Book allows for a choice of readings to use for the Old Testament and
the Gospel of the Day, but there is no alternative offered for the Epistle. The
marriage rite simply calls for Ephesians chapter 5 and that is that.
When Ephesians 5 is read for a marriage, it seems to add to the bouquet
of the day. The bride might not feel too enthused about Paul’s command submit
to her own husband, but it isn’t too difficult to sidestep such divine commands
and get on with the festivities. Probably the groom does a little sidestepping,
too: “Husbands, love your wives as Christ loved the church and gave Himself up
for her.” Even with that considered, Ephesians 5 seems to fit very well with
most Christian’s mental picture of the way marriage should be, at least when
this Bible passage is read on a wedding day.
If you read Ephesians 5 on a different day—perhaps on the Twelfth
Sunday after Pentecost—there are no flowers or white dresses to get in the way.
When you read Ephesians 5 on a different day, you might get something different
than a mental picture of the way marriage should be. You might get an
indictment. You might get a face full of the way your marriage is, and in that
you might feel guilty. You might feel resentful or angry. You might feel
reopened wounds of grief or betrayal or abandonment. Ephesians 5 read on any
day other than a wedding day might end up being, not a picture of the way
things should be, but a painful reminder of the way things are not:
· The way things are not for you; or
· The way things are not for your parents or for one of your siblings; or
· The way things are not for some of your fellow Christians here in this
place.
Husbands, love your wives, as 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. In the same way husbands should love their wives as their own bodies.
He who loves his wife loves himself. For no one ever hated his own flesh, but
nourishes and cherishes it, just as Christ does the church, because we are
members of his body.
1. Undoubtedly, some people hear today’s Epistle with a guilty
conscience because of divorce. Their personal experience stands in stark
contrast to what St. Paul is speaking about, making this Epistle difficult to
hear. Such people might even mistakenly feel like they are second-class
citizens in the kingdom of God because of their marriage histories.
If you have suffered divorce, today’s Epistle does not exclude you.
Today’s Epistle is for you! You have a Christ who has given Himself up for you.
You have a Christ whose purpose in going to the cross was the cleansing of all
your sins and the healing of your wounds. “Christ loved [you] the Church and
gave Himself up for [you], that He might sanctify [you], having cleansed [you
from all your sins and all your shame and all your regrets] by the washing of
water with the Word.”
2. Many married people have not suffered divorce, but they feel guilty
about their marriages nevertheless. Some have committed sins of thought or of
word or of deed against their spouse—sins they deeply regret. Others have
committed the sin of thinking they are not worthy of the love their spouse has
for them. Still others have committed the greater sin of thinking their spouse
is not worthy of much love at all.
Today’s Epistle is also for you! You also have a Christ who has given
Himself up for you. When St. Paul says that Christ cleansed you “by the washing
with water through the Word,” he is speaking about your Baptism. Jesus went to
the cross to cleanse you of all your sins through Baptism, and your Baptismal
cleansing is new every morning. All of the sins, all of the failures, all of
the regrets of your past are drowned and dead with the Old Man. The New
Creation that arises daily from the miracle of your Baptism IS a good and
faithful wife, a gentle and devoted husband who loves his bride as Christ loved
the Church.
3. Other people are not married: some are still children; some are
widowed; some have no intention or desire to marry. Unmarried people might feel
as though today’s Epistle does not apply to them at all. Not so! God’s gift of
marriage is a gift for the whole Church, including the unmarried. No matter how
many divorces the Church might suffer, no matter how marriage might become
abused or disregarded or ignored by the unbelievers around us, we Christians
must guard and cherish this godly relationship. We must do everything in our
power to preserve the honesty and the integrity of marriage in our midst
because marriage is an on-going proclamation of the Gospel.
Not every person in ancient Israel was circumcised, but everyone in Israel knew
that circumcision was a sign of God’s promise for all who believed. In the same
way, not everyone in the Church marries. St. Paul even states elsewhere that it
is good for some not to marry, because marriage can bring many additional
troubles into your life (1 Corinthians 7:28). Nevertheless, marriage in our
midst is a good and blessed thing for everyone in the Church, even for the
unmarried and even for those whose marriages have died. Marriage is a good and
blessed thing for everyone in the Church because of the picture of Christ that
marriage gives to us.
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. In the same way
husbands should love their wives as their own bodies. He who loves his wife
loves himself. For no one ever hated his own flesh, but nourishes and cherishes
it, just as Christ does the church, because we are members of his body.
You, dear saints, are the Church. No matter what your life’s
experience, no matter what deeds you have committed, no matter what you have
suffered, you are the Church and no one can take that relationship away from
you. You are the beloved bride for whom Christ lived and for whom Christ died.
There is no one the Lord Jesus loves more than you, no one toward whom He is
more devoted than you. He is and He shall remain faithfully yours, for He has
become one flesh with you. He made you His own body—the body of Christ (1
Corinthians 12:27)—and “no one ever hated his own body” (NIV). You are cleansed
of all your sins through the shedding of His blood, which He delivers to you in
Baptism. You are a worthy bride, “without spot or wrinkle or any such thing.”
You have heard the old cliché, “Beauty is in the eye of the beholder.”
Man, woman, child: stop looking at yourself with your own eyes. Look at
yourself in the way that you Christ sees you—and in the way that your Christ
has re-created you.
On the wedding day, custom usually forbids the groom from seeing his bride in
her radiance and beauty until the marriage ceremony has begun. This is a good
custom. When the groom finally sees his bride appear at the back of the church
for her bridal procession, it is not hard for him to realize that he is looking
at the most beautiful thing he has ever seen. That is the way your Lord Jesus
Christ looks at you, dear saints. You are beautiful—simply beautiful.
The peace of God which passes all understanding guard your hearts and
minds through Christ Jesus. Amen.
___________________________________________________________________________
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