St. John Chrysostom said that in marriage, husband and wife become companions on a journey. He says there are two kinds of marriages: those that bring great blessings to the husband and wife, their family, and their neighbors; but there are other marriages which seem to bring few blessings to anyone. The difference between the two, he says, is in the spirit of the bond in which the marriage is formed….
Read More“I am the true vine, and my Father is the vinedresser.” Everything Jesus says about love is grounded in this organic connection: Jesus the Vine, the Father the Vinedresser. We are branches joined to the vine. That means we have no life in ourselves. Our life is utterly dependent upon His. That’s the background for our Lord’s teaching about love, which comes eight verses later.
There, in Jn 15.9, Jesus says, “As the Father has loved me, so have I loved you. Abide in my love.” Notice that the Lord does not say, “Abide in love.” It’s easy to be in love – for a time. It’s easy to feel love when we’ve set a romantic mood and there are no crosses to bear.
But Jesus is not preparing His disciples for a make-believe life. He is preparing them and us for the way of the cross….
Read MoreA wise man once said, “Some people work very hard at top speed, only to find themselves falling further behind.” Does that describe your life? It’s tempting to imagine that this is the result of our always-connected devices, with the expectation that you work from the moment you awake until the moment before your head hits the pillow. Certainly the ability to be on another continent in a matter of hours, and the twenty-four hour news cycle, leads to a frenzied sort of existence. But at its core, the saying reflects a very old problem. This saying—“Some people work very hard at top speed, only to find themselves falling further behind”—this saying comes from The Wisdom of Sirach [11.11 NJB], a second-century BC Jewish book similar to Proverbs. The more things change, the more they stay the same. I read from the NJB; the ESV is a bit more stately: “There is a man who works and toils and presses on, but falls behind so much the more.”
That idea of failing, falling, falling behind – it’s a universal human experience. Try as we might to accumulate resources, it’s never enough. And time, our most precious commodity, is steadily ticking away. All the fears about population and climate change reflect the human anxiety that we are running short, lacking, dying.
That’s what underlies today’s Gospel. It’s a real event, not a parable. Jesus really did change water into wine at Cana. It’s not fiction – but it is loaded with symbolism. Running out of wine makes the wedding a failure….
Read More“And there were set there six waterpots of stone, after the manner of the purifying of the Jews.” Six is the number of man, for man was made on the sixth day of creation. Because man—who is identified by the number six—fell into sin, six is also in the Bible a number designating incompleteness/lacking/deficiency. Because of this damaged deficiency, every man needs purification for the sins that he does and the sin that he is, i.e., the sinful nature we all have inherited from Adam. Not out of convenience, then, does the Lord select these six stone waterpots used for the Jewish purification ritual before a meal. The transformation of the water from these waterpots points to the transformation of the entire ritual system of purification – a transformation that culminates in the death of Jesus, where He gives His own blood for wine.
So Jesus answers His mother as He does, and John tells us that this miracle was a sign, so that we won’t miss the most important fact…
Read MoreJuly 27, 2019
1 John 4:7-12
Immanuel Evangelical-Lutheran Church, Alexandria, Virginia
During the LCMS convention this past week I had lots of time to think about parliamentary procedure: motions, amendments, amendments to the amendments, and calling the question. Calling the question ends debate. During the convention a wise person said to me, “Calling the question doesn’t work in a happy marriage.”
“Yes,” I agreed, “but limiting speeches to two minutes would probably help!” We want discussion to end, and move to voting. The democratic ideal, that each person gets an equal vote, cannot work in a marriage, because it’s a society of two. And we cannot call the question, or end discussion, because the community of marriage is founded on discussion.
Mark, you and I share a love of German things. Perhaps you’ve heard of the German man who said to his wife, “I love you, and if anything changes, I’ll let you know.”
I know it’s blasphemy, but even the love of Teutonic culture can go too far! Discussion within marriage is like the liturgy – a joyous repetition of eternal truths. When the Lord gives us His benediction, we don’t just say “Amen,” but rather, “Amen, Amen, Amen.” So let your love be expressed like the triple Amen. “I love you, and it’s not going to change, but I will keep letting you know.”
Marital discussion is not political discussion, intended to persuade or impose your will on the other. It is a discussion with an entirely different purpose: “How can I help you?” “What do you need?” St. John Chrysostom calls this obedience – a voluntary and continuous placing of self in service to spouse. He says that in marriage it’s not a matter of one partner obeying the other, but of both partners obeying each other.
But you can’t be married for too long before you want to start calling the question, raise a point of order, or maybe even walk out of the assembly. The Bible readings you chose show us a better way: “In this is love, not that we have loved God but that he loved us and sent his Son to be the propitiation for our sins” (1 Jn 4:10).
Conflict is resolved not through winning the argument but through the taking away of sins. “If God so loved us, we also ought to love one another” (1 Jn 4:11). Marital love cannot then be defined simply by the romantic or the erotic, but by the reconciling power of absolution and self-sacrifice.
Mark, shortly after you were baptized, you wrote me a note that included this line: “I have received the greatest gift.” I wonder if you still thought that when Kirstin was coming down the aisle. She’s an incredible gift to you.
But it is still true. Baptism is the greatest gift, because it gives us the foundation for everything else. Baptism gives us the righteousness of Jesus, His life, His resurrection.
The gift you have received becomes the gift you also give. The Holy Spirit, through St. Paul, tells us that Baptism is also how the husband relates to his wife.
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. (Eph 5:25-27)
This means, Mark, that Kirstin is holy, not just today, but throughout your life. She is without blemish, without spot, without sin. That’s how the Lord regards His baptized, and that’s how the husband regards his wife.
Baptism is the foundation of the Church; and according to St. Paul, baptism is also the foundation of holy marriage. Marriage is a little church, and Mr and Mrs Reistad, you are to be commended for the way you raised your children. I was overwhelmed with joy when I heard Kirstin describe the spiritual life of your home. Most significant was the bedtime singing. It reminded me of this hymn:
Lo, the’apostles’ holy train
Join Thy sacred name to hallow;
Prophets swell the glad refrain,
And the white-robed martyrs follow,
And from morn to set of sun
Through the Church the song goes on.
This is what happens at a Christian marriage. The Song goes on. A new family, a new little church, takes up the Song. The Song is a hymn of praise to the Lamb.
Mr and Mrs Reistad, Kirstin told me that she didn’t like it when in the evening you would sing the Nunc Dimittis. I couldn’t understand why. But she explained, it meant the singing was over. But it’s never over, Kirstin. It just pauses for a moment so we can sleep. Now you and Mark take up the Song. Let it animate your home, your marriage, your souls. As God blesses you with children, you teach it to them.
That’s really what marriage is. Not the exultation in romantic love, although I hope you have it in abundance. Marriage is not a contractual arrangement, as though we are exchanging goods and services. Christian marriage is singing the Song, the Song of Christ, as we help each other get to heaven.
So we never call the question in holy marriage. Never end the discussion. When trouble comes to your marriage, from within or without, sing the Song. Remember the gift, the greatest gift. Now, through your marriage, the song goes on. ✠INJ✠
The day will come when things will have gone sour. You will have gotten on each other’s nerves. You will have misunderstood each other. You will have disappointed each other – maybe in a severe way. You may even question if you still have a future. But the godly marriage, no matter how rough the waters are, comes back to this question: An nyong hah se yo - “Are you at peace?” And the answer, between children of God—especially husband and wife—the answer is always, 네 - Ne: “Yes. I am at peace with you - because God is at peace with me. If Jesus forgave my sins, how can I not forgive you yours?”
Read MoreWe want to own the thing we love, to possess it, to control it. But that only shows the love of self.
The words of Jesus in today’s Gospel show us a different kind of love. “I know My sheep, and am known by My own.” The ones Jesus calls “His own” are not possessions (like a collection of trophies) but people – the people He Himself created. His love for us He demonstrates by self-giving. “The good shepherd gives His life for the sheep.”
That’s marriage. “Husbands, love your wives, just as Christ also loved the church and gave Himself for her.” There’s no ownership here in the sense of domineering control and a demand to do things my way. It is self-giving to the end, the end where the shepherd lets himself be bitten and clawed by the wolf attacking the sheep. The husband doesn’t care about himself, only about his wife.
Read MoreIt is no mistake that our Lord chooses to perform His first miracle at a wedding. But it is not simply a miracle, a magic show, a spectacular event to wow the crowd or to help His mother save face. St. John calls it a sign, the beginning of signs. A sign does not exist for itself. A sign signifies, points to something greater.
This sign of transforming water into wine is done in the context of Jesus talking about His hour. Throughout John’s Gospel Jesus says repeatedly, “My hour is not yet come.” Then finally, just before Jesus washes the feet of His disciples, the night before His crucifixion, St. John tells us that that great event, the Passion of Jesus, is His hour: “Now before the Feast of the Passover,” John says in ch. 13, “when Jesus knew that his hour had come to depart out of this world to the Father, having loved his own who were in the world, he loved them to the end.”
Read MoreYour home, Stephanie and Yonas, is to be the Mekane Yesus - the dwelling place of Jesus. Yonas Mekonen, you are the angel of this home, the guardian and protector. Stephanie is the crown, the glory, the queen and treasure. Fill your home, Stephanie, not just with singing but with the song of faith. The Mekonen home is the Mekane Yesus - the dwelling place of Jesus.
Read MoreGod’s created order is predicated on self-giving. The world itself is gift to mankind. Man and woman are then made to be dependent on one another. The woman’s life derived from the man’s body. God made her from man’s side, so she is bone of his bones and flesh of his flesh. And she in turn would give her body to him. These two, becoming one flesh, giving themselves to each other, find then a third—a child—who receives life from their union.
The structure of the world is centered around this self-giving. The story of the world begins and ends with a marriage. And at the center of world history stands Jesus, who in today’s Gospel is attending a failing marriage.
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