Todd A. Peperkorn, STM

Messiah Lutheran Church

Kenosha, Wisconsin

Marriage of Jamie Jacobs and Mitchel Kauppila

June 26, 2010

John 2:1-11

kauppila-jacobs2010 wedding sermon (MP3 format)

TITLE: “The Wedding Feast”

Grace to you and peace from God our Father and the Lord Jesus Christ, especially to you, Jamie and Mitch.  Our text for today is taken from I Corinthians 13 as well as from John chapter 2.

We don’t know who the couple are in our text.  We never even get their names.  We don’t know how they met.  We don’t know about their parents, we don’t know what they did for a living.  Did they grow up with Jesus?  Were they cousins or some other shirt-tail relatives?  We really don’t know anything about them at all.

You can almost imagine the picture.  Maybe it wasn’t that different from the picture here today.  A young couple, the families are all gathered for the joyous occasion.  Friends, neighbors, schoolmates, relatives from near and far were there.  You could sense the nervous energy, the joy and excitement, coupled with just a hint of uncertainty in the air.  Will everything go just right?  What will our lives be like together?  How will we live?  Where will we live?  Will God bless us with children?

I’m sure many of these same thoughts and more have been running through your minds, Mitch and Jamie.  You are preparing to embark on a wondrous journey together.  It is an adventure, but if we’re honest with ourselves, it’s also a little scary.  You don’t know what your lives will be like a month, a year, ten years or more from now.  You don’t know whether it will be easy or hard, and what oddities will happen along the way.  (Since you’re a Jacobs, Jamie, I’m pretty certain there will be oddities along the way…)

But there is one thing we know about the couple in our text.  They invited the mother of our Lord to the wedding, and they invited Jesus Himself.  Perhaps in the hubbub of the wedding this little fact didn’t seem all that important.  Perhaps He was just one more person to check off.  Aunt Matilda.  Check.  Uncle Maynard.  Check.  Jesus from over in Nazareth.  Check.  Oh, and make sure you invite His mother.  She always wants to be there when He’s around.

But little known to them, inviting Jesus to the wedding was the most important thing that happened in all their planning.  Disaster struck!  They ran out of wine.  Maybe that doesn’t seem like a big deal to you, but to them, this was huge.  Everyone would think they were cheap, rude, and didn’t really care for all of the guests that had been invited.  After all that planning, all that work, to think that something should go wrong!  Oh the horror of it all.

Will disaster strike today or during your married life together?  I hope not, but it’s possible.  For richer for poorer, in sickness and in health, you will pledge to each other in a few minutes.  Life has a way to getting in the way of all of our great ideas sometimes.  It is important that we recognize today that the joy of married life isn’t that there are no problems.  The joy is that you will face them together, with Christ.

In the case of the couple in our text, Jesus was there at just the right time.  He turns water into wine, saves the wedding, and all is well.  Now, in the global scale of wedding disasters, running out of wine doesn’t seem like a big deal, does it?  Yet this miracle, this sign is the very first one that Jesus ever did.

This tells us something about how much God loves you, Jamie and Mitch.  God is present for richer for poorer, in sickness and in health.  In a very real sense, God has bound Himself to each of you already in the waters of Holy Baptism, and now He binds the two of you together in Him.  The book of Ecclesiastes says it well: “And though a man might prevail against one who is alone, two will withstand him—a threefold cord is not quickly broken.” (Ecclesiastes 4:12 ESV)  Christ Himself is the cord that binds the two of you together.

It is for this reason that St. Paul calls marriage a picture of the love that Christ has for His bride, the Church.  Christ loves us to death, literally.  He died for you and me and all of us, so that we might live in Him forever.  Your love for Jamie, Mitch, is a little picture of Christ’s love for us all, and your love for Mitch, Jamie, teaches us all why we are free to love Christ  as His bride, the Church.  Your marriage brings us all back to Eden, where God’s love for Adam and Eve brought the whole world into being.

We don’t know the couple in our text this morning, but we know you, and everyone here rejoices in God’s mercy at bringing the two of you together.  But more important that our well wishes is the fact that Jesus is here, at your wedding.  He comes to bless you, to stand with you every step of the way, and to draw you into each other all the rest of your lives.  Welcome to the family.  Welcome to Paradise.  Amen.

“And though a man might prevail against one who is alone, two will withstand him—a threefold cord is not quickly broken.” (Ecclesiastes 4:12 ESV)

One of the many benefits which my wife and I have received from the DOXOLOGY training program has been the gift of prayer. Kathryn and I were able to have a wonderful dinner and conversation with an Australian pastor and theologian named Dr. John Kleinig. He is best known in our parish for his delightful book, Grace Upon Grace.

As Kathryn and I sat and talked with him, he asked me about my book, and specifically about the struggle that I had with prayer while I was sick and on disability. We talked, and then he told us what he and his wife have been doing for many years. They’ve made several resolutions about their common life together. Here are some of them:

• Always go to bed at the same time. This insures that eventually or generally, you end up on the same wake/sleep schedule. It helps a marriage if you aren’t two ships passing in the night, living parallel lives.
• Talk about the day, especially that made you rejoice, and what challenges or temptations you had. This helps you to stay focused on one another and your actually needs, not simply on talking about the weather, the children, the schedule, etc.
• Finally, pray out loud for one another each night in the presence of your spouse. The point of this is that it focuses your life upon the life of your spouse. You know that your needs are heard by your spouse and by God Himself. It helps you to know what to actually do to help your spouse, because they have told you what is going on.

So Kathryn and I started doing this in September 2009, and I can hardly begin to tell you what kind of a blessing it has been to our marriage and our family. We are more aware of one another, we are more relaxed, and we know that for at least one little snippet of time each day, we are together and in Christ. It has helped us to focus on the needs of each of our children, of our family at large and on our brothers and sisters here at Messiah.

Why not try it? It doesn’t have to be long or complicated. It can be as simple as “God bless Kathryn. Give her a night of sleep. Help our children to rest so that they and we may rise in the morning to serve you.” You may be amazed at what God can do.

Yours in Christ,
Pastor Peperkorn

Todd A. Peperkorn, STM

Messiah Lutheran Church

Kenosha, Wisconsin

Epiphany II (January 17, 2010)

John 2:1-11; Ephesians 5

[podcast]http://public.me.com/toddpeperkorn/sermons/Epiphany02-2010.mp3[/podcast]

TITLE: “Jesus Came to the Marriage”

Grace to you and peace from God our father and the Lord Jesus Christ. Amen. Our text for this morning is from the Gospel just read, Jesus comes to the marriage.

St. Paul in our epistle talks quite a bit about husband and wives, and how we are to relate to one another. He uses all sorts of peculiar language like submit and love and sanctify and headship all sorts of things. After talking about how the husband is a picture of Christ and the wife is a picture or image of the Church, Paul goes on to quote Genesis two about how a man shall leave his father and mother and cling to his wife, and that the two shall become one flesh. Paul then makes a beautiful statement:

“This mystery is profound, and I am saying that it refers to Christ and the church.” (Ephesians 5:32 ESV)

Now I will be the first to admit that the mystery of Christ’s love to the church is profound, but I don’t think we should pass over the lesser mystery so quickly, because it will lead us into this great mystery. The mystery of which I speak is the mystery of husband and wife, or if you prefer, the mystery of the family.

Families are mysterious. By that I mean if you are looking at a family from the outside, you will probably never completely get to the bottom of what that family is all about. There are layers we just can’t see from the outside. Gunk. Beauty. Joyful moments. Days of deep sadness. Days when you can hardly get everyone together. Days when you can hardly stand to be apart. There are days when it hardly seems like any two members of the family can stand to talk to each other. Families are a great mystery.

Think for a moment about the most famous families in the Scriptures. Adam and Eve. Pristine, primeval, and messed up from near the beginning. They fought. Their oldest son killed their second son. What a mess.

Or think of Jacob. Let’s see. He had two wives and children from two of his servants. So you had a blended family with sons and daughters from four different women. They all lived under the same roof, too. Several of the sons sell the second youngest into slavery, after they decide not to kill him. Yeah, great role model family.

Or how about David? He had children by his wife, then he takes another man’s wife, murders him, marries the second woman, and has children by her as well. They struggle and fight their whole lives long, and one of David’s sons tried to have him killed so that he could take over the throne.

That’s just three examples from the Bible, but we could come up with many more. Abraham and Sarah. Isaac and Rebekah. Judah and Tamar. Even the holy family did not start out in the most glorious of beginnings.

Of course, our own families are really no better. How many of you have dark secrets in your household that you really hope don’t get out? Hidden sadness, anger, bickering and fighting between children and parents, husband and wife. Of course, this bickering and fighting isn’t limited to those who live under the same roof. Absence may make the heart grow fonder, but it can also lead to misunderstandings and a whole host of other trials and troubles in our lives.

The sad reality is that our families are a mess. We love each other. We sacrifice for each other all the time. But it is chaotic at best, that’s for sure. I can certainly understand and relate to our collect this morning, where we ask that God would grant us peace through all our days. Peace at home is a treasure that is sadly more rare than we would like to admit.

Of course, there are also other ways that we can talk about the family. St. Paul says that the Church is a family. We are talking about the mystery of Christ and the Church. We, here sitting together, are a family. We love one another, but don’t always like each other. We judge one another, compete with each other, and look down the nose at the other members of the family who don’t seem to be pulling their weight, doing their part of the work.

So what are we to do? Our families are broken and confused, our church is troubled inside and out. What is the missing piece of this puzzle? How do we unravel the mystery of Christ and the Church?

A part of what God gives to you this day is that He frees you from the need to understand everything. It’s a mystery! Let it be as God would have it. How God holds families together is His holy work. That doesn’t let us off the hook, but it does free us from thinking we have to figure everything out. Jesus came to the marriage for that couple in Cana. He came. That’s the mystery.

In the middle of all of the chaos of our lives, Jesus enters into our family. He blesses us with His gracious presence. He brings divine food and drink to this marriage in His own body and blood. He enters in, and He makes things anew. That doesn’t mean we see all of the changes now. In fact, we won’t. But Jesus’ coming changes everything.

This is true for earthly families, but this is all the more true for Christ’s Bride, the holy Christian Church. Jesus gives up everything for us. He loves us as He loves Himself. He draws us into His holy embrace, and promises that he will never leave us nor forsake us.
God cares for you completely, utterly, and without holding anything back. He gives you the peace that passes all understanding, by suffering the violence of the cross for you. That is His love for you, His Bride.
Every family is a mystery. But God’s mercy shines through all of our messes and enlightens every dark corner with His love. Believe it for Jesus’ sake. Amen.

And now the peace of God, which passes all understanding, keep your hearts and minds in true faith to life everlasting. Amen.

Almighty and everlasting God, who governs all things in heaven and on earth, mercifully hear the prayers of Your people and grant us Your peace through all our days; through Jesus Christ, Your Son, our Lord, who lives and reigns with You and the Holy Spirit, one God, now and forever. Amen.

My friend Mollie Hemingway here does a great critique of the latest Newsweek article on marriage. Please check it out.

-LL

Sola scriptura minus the scriptura » GetReligion: “”

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