Marriage Homily

This entry is a homily given at my son’s wedding. Two wonderful people were wed that day, and the Holy Spirit had a special message for them:

God always had a plan for One Flesh.

Seamus and Kaley, over the past several months we have talked about Sacred Marriage. We discussed how God uses marriage to nurture Godliness within us. The heavy lifting is done. Today I want to focus on the fun part! In the beginning God created everything. God formed man and placed him in a garden. But Genesis 2 says God didn’t like how man was alone. In fact, man’s condition was the single thing in all of creation that God considered “not good.” So he and Adam went on a hunt to find a companion. Every land animal went before Adam, and he named every one. Not one of them was fit for man. So God put Adam to sleep and took a rib from the man with which he created the one who was missing - the woman. 

The Bible says that after God made the woman, he “brought her to the man.” Having formed a beautiful being made to complete His own good creation, the Father brought the woman to her companion. This is where Adam declares the woman to be “bone of my bone and flesh of my flesh.” He named her woman because she was “taken out of man.” And God, through the writing of Genesis responded, “Therefore a man shall leave his father and his mother and hold fast (cleave) to his wife, and they shall become one flesh.” (Genesis 2:24) One flesh - that’s different. Before the creation of Eve, God said man’s condition was “not good.” So He created something unique in all existence - a relationship. He formed a woman out of man - no other creature was created in this way. He brought her to man - not done anywhere else in all of creation. He declared their union One Flesh, and no other created thing shares this type of relationship. It was all unique, and it was all according to plan. 

Fast forward a few thousand years. The Apostle Paul writes this - “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, (that sounds a lot like what God did with the first woman!) without spot or wrinkle or any such thing, that she might be holy and without blemish. (I imagine that this is what Eve must have been like when God brought her to the man,) In the same way, husbands should love their wives as their own bodies. He who loves his wife loves himself. For no one ever hated his own flesh, but nourishes and cherishes it, just as Christ does the church, because we are members of his body. (What is a rib? It is a member of a body. This is a picture of Eve’s creation - out of the body of man. ) ‘Therefore a man shall leave his father and mother and hold fast to his wife, and the two shall become one flesh.’ This mystery is profound, and I am saying that it refers to Christ and the church. (Ephesians 5) 

What’s the mystery? ONE FLESH. We call the covenant you two are entering into “marriage.” God calls it One Flesh, and it is a profound mystery that REFERS to Christ and the church. In the very beginning, our Heavenly Father intentionally left something undone in His creation, to demonstrate, through creating One Flesh, His Son’s relationship with the people He died to save!

It was always in God's plan to create One Flesh in the covenant of marriage. And it was always His plan for you two to be united as One Flesh. Your Heavenly Father founded this union before time began. Y’all have been waiting a little over 20 years for this day to happen. God has waited since before time was even a thing. Now that He sees it happening, He dances over us. Make no mistake - there is a celebration going on in Heaven, as this union is declared before heaven’s throne. 

Seamus and Kaley, from this day you are to move forward in courage and strength - knowing that your union is blessed by and established in the Everlasting God. You are to be a symbol in this world of Jesus’ faithful love and tremendous sacrifice for His bride. You are joined as One Flesh. And let all creation hear the words of the King of kings and Lord of lords - “What God has joined together let no one separate.”