Every time my mom offered, I jumped at the
chance. I didn’t care who it was. I just wanted to be there, but not for the
worship. I couldn’t have cared less
about that, except that it was usually pretty short. I wanted what came after, the fancy nuts,
the butter mints, the tea sandwiches, that amazing punch with the green sherbet
floating in the middle. That so
rocked.
I was ten years old and I already loved weddings,
ok, wedding receptions. And as a pastor’s
kid, you scored a lot of receptions.
But at those old style Southern affairs, I had no idea what I was
missing. In the South where I grew up,
even the fanciest receptions weren’t much more than a generous cocktail
hour. And most of them weren’t that. You
didn’t get much at a Southern wedding reception – nuts and crackers, punch and
cookies, and maybe if you were lucky tea sandwiches.
So when I moved north as an adult, it blew me away. You had these elaborate cocktail hours, sit-down
dinners, open bars, and a DJ; sometimes even a whole band. Now I still love the receptions, but I
love the weddings too. As a pastor, I usually have the best seat in
the house. I can see how big the groom’s
eyes get when he sees his beloved walk down the aisle. I catch the tender looks between the bride
and groom that others can’t see. I look
out at parents teary eyed with pride and bittersweet joy, friends and family
beaming with smiles. I still love the
receptions, but I now love the weddings more.
How about you? Do you love a good
wedding?
On a wedding day, nothing seems impossible. You feel.
Love will make a way no matter what this couple faces. And you know that hard times will come. Every relationship has them. But on that day, it’s all about the joy, the
possibilities; the adventure that awaits.
But weddings don’t simply show a beautiful picture
of human love. They point beyond. They
point to God’s love, to the tragedy of that love, to its ultimate triumph. The story of God’s connection to us isn’t a
morality tale. It’s a love story. And
until you know that, you don’t really get God or what God desires at all. But once you do, it changes everything. It opens you to a relationship with God more
intense, more amazing, more incredible than you might ever have imagined. So
listen and hear the ending of the ultimate love story, the love story that lies
at the heart of everything.
When you come to the end of the Bible, what do you
find? You find a wedding. That’s how the story ends. And in that ending, if you didn’t see it
before, you get what God desires. God
doesn’t want to relate to you as a ruler to subjects or even like a shepherd to
sheep. God wants to relate to you the way
lovers do in a marriage. God wants that
level of intimacy, that deep and binding a commitment. God wants a wedding. In no other religion will you find a God
who desires you like that. And once you
see that, you’ll never look at God or yourself the same way again.
First, you’ll see what lies at the heart of the
human problem. What does? Human beings have become unfaithful
lovers. At the heart of every human
moral failing, every sense of disconnection from God, from others; even from yourself,
is this painful reality. You’ve fallen away
from your one true love.
It’s why again and again the Bible’s writers
describe God as a spurned lover, God’s people as a faithless spouse. So how does this happen? How do we cheat on God so to speak?
Imagine this for a moment. A woman’s beloved proposes to her. He gets down on one knee. He offers her this
beautiful ring. But then she is so
captivated by the ring, she forgets about him. She just walks away. She doesn’t even hear her lover’s proposal. Now you might think. Sheesh, that must have been some ring. But do you get the point? It
was never ever supposed to be about the ring.
The ring only pointed to the
relationship, to her beloved’s desire to be with her for the rest of his life. Yet
she missed that completely.
It reminds me of a couple I knew in college. They had been engaged to be married, when
she broke it off. But she decided to
keep the ring, even wore it around campus.
She just wore it on her other hand
now. She said that just made it a
regular ring. But did it? I gotta tell you. No one I knew thought so. We were all appalled. Why?
You couldn’t look at that ring without thinking about the man that had
given it. No one could separate the
ring from that relationship, a relationship from which she had walked away.
Yet, that’s what we do. We’re that woman wearing the ring. God showers
us with gifts, but we get so focused on the gifts that we forget completely
about the giver. And then we wonder
why we don’t feel fulfilled, or why things that we know shouldn’t matter to us
end up mattering so much? What’s going
on? We’ve held on to the ring and walked away from the relationship.
How can you know what rings you’re holding onto? What
do you think about when you are alone, when your mind wanders? What do you worry about? What do you find it easiest to spend money
on? Answering those question will give
you an idea of where you unfaithfulness lies.
This unfaithfulness not only brings God incredible pain
and heartbreak, it brings you pain and heartbreak. Why?
Whatever ring you’ve run after can’t give you what you need, what you
yearn to have. You weren’t made for the
ring. You were made for the
relationship. Yet, whatever your ring
is, it ends up binding you. You thought
you owned it, but in reality it starts to own you. And it pulls you further and further away
from the love you desperately need.
So if this is who human beings are, those who have
broken God’s heart and lost our true love. So how do we get back together? How does the wedding even happen?
God does what we could never do for ourselves. In
love, God rescues us. Why do you think human beings create story
after story with just such a plot? The
princess lies under an enchantment. The
dragon holds the damsel in distress.
Then a hero comes from outside, and at the risk of his life, he rescues her. He wins her hand. Why do we create those stories? We are sensing the ultimate story that lies
behind all those stories, the ultimate story that lies at the heart of
everything.
But in this ultimate story, the hero doesn’t risk
his life, he gives his life. He gives
his life to bring us home, to restore the relationship, to make the wedding
happen. When we hear the words here,
marriage supper of the lamb, that’s what they mean. In Jesus, God became that lamb, the sacrifice
that makes us right; that brings us to the wedding.
From the beginning Jesus knew that was why he had
come. That’s why he said some very
strange words at his first miracle, when he turned water into wine at a wedding. Jesus’ mother finds out that the happy
couple has run out of wine. She knows
what a crisis that is, what an embarrassment.
So she reaches out to Jesus, to do something. And what does Jesus say? He tells her. Woman, it is not my hour. What does he mean? If you read further, you will hear Jesus say
that same phrase again and again, and each time, he is referring to the hour of his death. So why did he say it at this
wedding in Cana? Jesus was thinking
like lots of single folks do at weddings, about his own wedding day. But Jesus knew his wedding day would be like
no other. He knew the prophecies, how God
had proclaimed himself to be the groom of his people. Jesus knew.
He had come to be that groom. But
he knew that for the wedding day to come, for us to be able to drink that cup
of joy, he would first have to drink the cup of sorrow. He
would need to give up everything for the love to be restored, for the wedding to
happen.
And Jesus did.
He drank the cup of sorrow so you might drink the cup of joy. He entered into ultimate darkness to bring
you into the light forever. He delivered
you from the rings that bound you so that you can have the love that frees you. He rescued you for your wedding day.
And what does it mean this marriage with God? It means the same that any marriage
does. First, it’s a legal thing. If you are poor and marry a rich person,
then you’re rich. And when you accept
God’s proposal in Jesus, God’s righteousness, God’s holiness becomes yours too.
Like marriage, it’s a comprehensive thing. It encompasses everything. I remember how stunned I was when I realized
that what I wore needed my wife’s approval. But then she explained, if you wear
something awful, they won’t blame you. They’ll
blame me. How could she let him go out
in something like that? Marriage
affects absolutely everything, even your clothes. And with God, it’s not all that
different? If you are a Christian, when you
put on judgment or arrogance or have failing, they don’t just look to you. They look to God. After all, that’s who you represent.
And this relationship is an intimate thing. It ain’t marriage unless there is contact,
unless there is intimacy. In this
union, God pours his love into you, and you return that love right back. What does this look like? In the 19th century, a famous
preacher named D.L. Moody led a church in Chicago. But when the Great Fire hit that city in
1871, his church building and many of his members’ homes burned down in
it. It threw Moody into despair. In the
midst of this depression, he visited New York to raise funds to rebuild, and he
pleaded with God there in his despair, please let me know your love. And he recounts what happened next, “One day
in the city of New York, on the streets of New York, Oh what a day, I can hardly
describe it. I seldom refer to it. It’s almost too sacred an experience to
name. I can only tell you this. I had such an experience of his love that I had to ask him to stay his hand (to stop).
I would not now be placed back where I was before that experience if you
should give me all the world.” Moody
fell into God’s arms, and it changed him forever. And you can do the same.
And as with any marriage, if you have intimacy, you usually
have children. Your marriage has
fruit. And so in the same way, as you grow in
intimacy with God, you bring fruit into the world, love, joy, peace, patience,
what the Bible calls the fruits of the spirit.
You come more and more like Jesus.
And finally like marriage, this relationship is a
consoling thing. A good marriage gives
you a refuge in the world, someone with whom you can share your burdens. And in Jesus, you find the ultimate refuge,
who took your failings into his arms so that you need never weigh you down again. He gives you a love without limits, a love
literally with no end. As great as any
human marriage is, this is the marriage that you need, that every human being
needs. This is the only marriage feast
that will feed you till you want no more.
And it all awaits you. All you need to do is say yes. Jesus has his hand outstretched to you, a
hand literally pierced for love of you.
All you need to do is take it, to receive his never-ending grace, his undying
love for you. So, Jesus is asking. What are you going to say?
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