Wedding Sermon / Keith and Monica Mitchell / Ecclesiastes 4:9–12 - Pastor Ted Giese / Mount Olive Lutheran Church – Sunday September 7th 2025

Mount Olive Lutheran Church / Pr. Ted A. Giese / Sunday September 7th 2025: Season of Pentecost / Ecclesiastes 4:9–12 “The Good Reward: A Time for Marriage”

Two are better than one, because they have a good reward for their toil. For if they fall, one will lift up his fellow. But woe to him who is alone when he falls and has not another to lift him up! Again, if two lie together, they keep warm, but how can one keep warm alone? And though a man might prevail against one who is alone, two will withstand him—a threefold cord is not quickly broken.

Let us pray: May the words of my mouth and the meditations of all our hearts be acceptable in Your sight O Lord. Amen.

Grace peace and mercy to you from God our Father and from our Lord and Saviour Jesus Christ: Keith and Monica, Good Christian Friends gathered here today for this joyous occasion; wise King Solomon provides us some wisdom from the Book of Ecclesiastes when he observes that “Two are better than one, because they have a good reward for their toil. For if they fall, one will lift up [the other],” and in the same book he teaches “For everything there is a season, and a time for every matter under heaven: a time to be born, and a time to die; a time to plant, and a time to pluck up what is planted; a time to kill, and a time to heal; a time to break down, and a time to build up; a time to weep, and a time to laugh; a time to mourn, and a time to dance; a time to cast away stones, and a time to gather stones together; a time to embrace, and a time to refrain from embracing.”[1] Today dear ones, at long last, is the time to get married, to be married, to promise to be there to lift each other up whenever you’re brought low not just for today but for the rest of your life. You have so far had ‘a good reward for your toil’ working together to build a life over these many years — at least as much as can be gleaned from your own efforts — and now you become the recipients of a blessed heavenly reward in Christ as you this day enter into Christian marriage. The blessing you receive today include the promise that no matter what the World throws your way you are not alone, that your twofold cord is now going to be a threefold cord made stronger in Christ Jesus who is the Third Cord bound into your life.    

With Jesus in your married life together it is much easier to “make a joyful noise to the LORD,” much easier to “serve the LORD with gladness,” much easier to, “Come into His presence with singing,” much easier to have those times of laughter, and healing, and dancing, and embracing, and building up. When you know and trust that it is the LORD who made you both, and that you are His it is all the more easy to enter His gates with thanksgiving, and His courts with praise,[2] not just here at the church but in your life day to day.

And for all the times when your joy is diminished and you find yourself challenged by moments where life gets you down remember that that Third Cord in your marriage is the strongest chord; because the LORD is the one who is even more faithful to us as a couple than we are to each other, He is more steadfast to us as a couple than we are to each other, His love endures and bears all things better than we’re able to do in our marriages: and so when we waver in our vocation of husband or wife we are called to lean on Him, to turn to the LORD for forgiveness and strength as Christians. Knowing this it is much easier to stand up and withstand anything and anyone who seeks to prevail against you as a couple.

In all of this Jesus has this word of encouragement for you, “This is My commandment, that you love one another as I have loved you.”[3] And with these words you see again how it is that you are not alone in this, not alone as Christians, not alone as a married couple. You have been prepared and made ready for this day. Thanks be to God! And thanks be to God that He has brought you to this day and this time and season for you in your life together. Amen.    

Let us pray:

Lord have mercy on us, Christ have mercy on us, Lord have mercy on us, “take our minds and think through them, take our lips and speak through them, take our hearts and set them on fire; for the sake of our Lord and Saviour Jesus Christ, Amen.

[1] Ecclesiastes 3:1–5
[2] Psalm 100
[3] John 15:12

Photo Credit: Main Photo provided my Mount Olive Lutheran Church.