Affirmation of Holy Matrimony for Mark and Shannon Ramey In Praise of a Miracle
Grace, mercy and peace to you from God our Father and from our Lord Jesus Christ! Last Sunday’s Gospel about ten lepers might not seem to lend itself well to a sermon on marriage. But what really happens here, when these ten cry out, “Jesus, Master, have mercy on us”? In this Gospel, Jesus gives a great and miraculous gift to a relatively large group of people. This was a gift these people could get from nowhere other than Jesus, but only a small part of that group returns to Him with thanks for His generosity and grace. Dear Christian friends, Marriage is a great miracle that God performs for you. Marriage doesn’t always look like a miracle, to be sure. Marriage sometimes looks more like two aging people with puffy eyes and messy hair consoling themselves with coffee at the breakfast table. Marriage doesn’t feel like a miracle. Marriage sometimes —or maybe most of the time—feel like hard work and repetitious labor and unnoticed self-sacrifice. No, marriage doesn’t always sound like a miracle, either. Sometimes marriage sounds like war; sometimes it sounds like silence. Marriage is not a sacrament like Baptism and Holy Communion are sacraments, but marriage is a miracle very much like Baptism and Holy Communion nonetheless: Baptism looks like water that we pour onto someone—but that water of Baptism is God’s miracle and God’s doing, whereby He adopts you to be His child forever. Holy Communion looks like bread that we eat and wine that we drink—but the bread and wine of Holy Communion are God’s miracle and God’s act, in which Christ Himself feeds you His Body and serves you His blood for your forgiveness and life. Holy marriage looks like a man and a woman vowing their wedded love and faithfulness till death do they part—but marriage is really God’s miracle and God’s deed, God’s joining together (Matthew 19:6) whereby a man becomes one flesh (Genesis 2:24) with his one wife (1 Timothy 3:2). No matter whether it is a civil ceremony or a churchly rite; whether it is a union of unbelievers or a union of Christians: marriage is God’s miracle and God’s gift, given to all people for our universal blessing and benefit just as surely as the sun shines and the rain falls on the righteous and the unrighteous alike (Matthew 5:45). Marriage is a miracle, just as Baptism and Holy Communion are miracles, but marriage is NOT a sacrament like Baptism and Holy Communion are sacraments. Baptism and Holy Communion deliver God’s grace and forgiveness to you. Marriage might be one of God’s best ways of showing you how much you need grace and forgiveness, not only from God but also from this treasure and gift—this husband or wife—whom He has given to you. To forgive and to be forgiven: that is a miracle, that necessity, that gift must remain enthroned at the very core of every marriage. Marriage is a great miracle and gift from God and it is an equally great miracle and gift from God that marriage survives and endures among us: Homosexual unions gain greater standing in our midst every day, yet such unions are nothing more and nothing less than a rejection and a mockery of the Father, Son and Holy Spirit, of Whom it is written, “In the image of God He created him, male and female He created them” (Genesis 1:27). Many men and women—including many Christians—are now living together without being married, delaying marriage or refusing marriage, and thus proclaiming publicly by their very lives that they do not want God or His Word or His miracle of marriage to lay claim upon them. You probably have already heard the statistics that report how more than half of all marriages—including Christian marriages—now end in divorce. Many people will say that their divorce was inevitable and unpreventable and even necessary and in some cases they are probably right. Divorce is a miserable fact of life for sin-filled people like you and me who live in a sin-filled world, and I am not sure I can name a single Christian who has not in some way suffered from the sin of divorce. Even among those many Christians who somehow manage to remain married for fifty or sixty years or more, is it not by the grace and mercy of God that they have done so? My fellow pastors jokingly tell me that I have a wife that I do not deserve, and they could not be more right. Mark Ramey right here also has a wife he certainly did not earn, and Shannon a husband graciously given to her by the mercy of God. Such gifts must not be taken for granted! None of us who are married truly deserves the good and faithful spouse we have been given, just as none of us deserves the forgiveness God gives to you in Jesus or the protection of the holy angels or the unshakable hope and promise of your bodily resurrection on the Last Day. God gives “them all to us by grace” (Small Catechism, Fifth Petition). This is what makes this Gospel for last Sunday a good Gospel for a sermon on marriage. Marriage is a great miracle that God performs for you and in this Gospel ten people came to your God looking for a miracle. Jesus gave the miracle to them, just as generously and lovingly as He has given the miracle of marriage to us. “Then one of them, when he saw that he was healed, turned back, praising God with a loud voice.” Perhaps this would be a good thing for us Christians also to do when we see God miraculously preserve His gift and miracle of marriage among us: The other lepers clearly thought too little of the good and gracious gift that Jesus gave to them. If they had, Jesus never would have needed to ask, “Were not then cleansed? Where are the nine?” It is not terribly difficult likewise to think too little of God’s gift and miracle of marriage. Marriage experiences are as many as the grains of sand on the seashore. For every happily married woman we can count, we can also count an embittered woman, a mistreated woman, or a widowed woman. For every contented husband to be found, there likewise can be found a resentful husband, a malicious husband, or a husband who no longer wishes to be a husband. Whether you are single, married, divorced or widowed: set aside your personal experience of marriage with whatever ups or downs, successes or failures, joys or regrets that have come your way. Look at God’s gift of marriage through the eyes of a Samaritan leper who saw that he was healed. Turn back from the frustration and the pain and the loneliness that so often pepper so many marriages. See the miracle and “praise God with a loud voice.” ___________________________________________________________________ 'CAT 41 Sermons & Devotions' consists of works that are, unless otherwise noted, the copyrighted property of the various authors; posting of such gives members of this list implied consent for redistribution _with_attribution_ unless otherwise specified by the author (as long as no charge is made for the work and it is not made part of a compilation), as well as for quoting or use in a congregational setting _with_or_without_attribution_. Note: This list's default reply is to the *poster*, NOT the list. Do *not* reply to the list with your comments, but to the poster. Subscribe? Send ANY note to: sermons...@cat41.org Unsubscribe? Send ANY note to: sermons-...@cat41.org Archive? <http://www.mail-archive.com/sermons@cat41.org/> For more information on this or other lists offered by Confess And Teach For Unity, you can contact the CAT 41 list administrator at: Rev. Fr. 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