Your relationship at it has come to this point is a testimony to the goodness of God. He has blessed each of you in the giving of a partner, mate, lover, and friend. And no one who is looking at both your faces right now could deny that He has done that. God has been very good to both of you, and we join with you in thanking Him for that, and we thank you for showing us His goodness in a new way.
But you now move into a new relationship, unlike what you have known before. As husband and wife, you bind yourselves to one another until death separates you. Much is said about the sacredness of marriage, and rightly so, because today is a sacred day. But I want to speak of the opportunity of marriage.
As was read a moment ago, love is patient, kind, trusting, and others-benefitting. In your best moments, Alex and Eunice, you will display that sort of love for one another. You will be people that reflect 1 Corinthians 13 to each other, and the rest of us will delight in your love. In those moments we may be tempted to ascribe to you individually or as a couple a special quality that is behind that love – as if you have created it from nothing – but Scripture reminds us that God is love, and it is from his first loving us that enables us to love another.
This brings us to the amazing reality of marriage, what you are entering into today. Ephesians 5 tells us that marriage is a symbol representing Christ and the church. You will have the opportunity over the rest of your lives to tell us, through your marriage, what the love of Christ is like for the church. As your friends, your family, and, if God wills, your children watch you submit to one another, to carry one another’s burdens, to love unconditionally, and to forgive each other, we will have a living, breathing example of the sort of love that Jesus has for each of us.
You have a great opportunity before you, a high calling. Having a great marriage (one of intimacy, vulnerability, strength, and passion) has personal fulfillment, certainly, but it can be even more than that. It can point us to the love of our Savior, Jesus Christ our Lord. And I pray that will be the case for you two. May your marriage be abounding in love, that you may know God, who is love.
Bob Wriedt 