Wedding Sermon / Thayne & Maegan Giroux / Colossians 3:12-17 - Pastor Ted Giese / Mount Olive Lutheran Church - March 28th 2015

Wedding Sermon - Colossians 3:12-17/ Thayne James Giroux & Meagan Ann Grace Biss / Mount Olive Lutheran Church / Rev. Ted A. Giese /

Put on then, as God's chosen ones, holy and beloved, compassionate hearts, kindness, humility, meekness, and patience, bearing with one another and, if one has a complaint against another, forgiving each other; as the Lord has forgiven you, so you also must forgive. And above all these put on love, which binds everything together in perfect harmony. And let the peace of Christ rule in your hearts, to which indeed you were called in one body. And be thankful. Let the word of Christ dwell in you richly, teaching and admonishing one another in all wisdom, singing psalms and hymns and spiritual songs, with thankfulness in your hearts to God. And whatever you do, in word or deed, do everything in the name of the Lord Jesus, giving thanks to God the Father through Him.

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. Good Christian Friends. Today is the last day of Lent before the beginning of Holy Week and tomorrow is your first full day of Wedded life together and in the church tomorrow is Palm Sunday: Palm Sunday kicks off Holy Week and it's the day when we Christians remember how men, women and children put palm branches and their coats on the road in front of Jesus as He made His triumphal entry into Jerusalem. We remember how Jesus was put on a donkey, a colt - the foul of a donkey - that had never been sat on before,[1] no one had ever been put on its back.

Thayne today you put on your tuxedo, Jesus had a borrowed donkey, you have a rented tux. Meagan you put on your wedding dress and you will keep it - your glorious dress is not rented - You will keep it. After your vows you will put on your wedding rings. And then when the paperwork is complete and the photos are taken you will put on a party, put on a reception. Then by Monday or Tuesday you will have put on your jeans and t-shirts and things will settle down and get more casual. But the rings will remain and the, vows will remain, and the paper work will be on the desk of someone at vital statistics: After all that what will there be left to put on?   

Saint Paul in our Epistle lesson this afternoon says, "Put on then, as God's chosen ones, holy and beloved, compassionate hearts, kindness, humility, meekness, and patience, bearing with one another and, if one has a complaint against another, forgiving each other; as the Lord has forgiven you, so you also must forgive. And above all these put on love, which binds everything together in perfect harmony."

Thayne and Meagan put on compassionate hearts, put on kindness, and put on humility, put on meekness, and patience, and above all these put on love, which binds everything together in perfect harmony ... the perfect harmony part (as your married guests today will likely be able to attest to), the perfect harmony part can only be put on with forgiveness: As Jesus has forgiven you, so you also must forgive each other.

The Bible is full of wedding imagery and Thayne, Jesus, is described as the Groom of His Bride[2] and on Palm Sunday Jesus rode into Jerusalem to meet His Bride and to face death for His Bride. Meagan as you and your guests heard, the Church is the bride of Christ Jesus, not the buildings and institutions, but the people called together into one body - the Body of Christ. Today you and Thayne become a mini picture of that to the world, Jesus in Matthew's Gospel says, ‘a man shall leave his father and his mother and hold fast to his wife, and the two shall become one flesh’? So they are no longer two but one flesh. What therefore God has joined together, let not man separate.”[3]

When Saint Paul says put on compassion, kindness, humility, meekness, patience and above all else love, when he says to put on these virtues, he is encouraging you to remember you baptism and the new creation you have become in that baptism. So after today, after all that we think, say, and do today at the wedding what will there be left to put on? Your baptism. Each day remember your baptism, put on that remembrance as you live your lives together. In Baptism you were baptised into Jesus' Triumphal Entry into Jerusalem on Palm Sunday and you are baptized into His crucifixion and death on Good Friday and you are baptized into His Resurrection of Easter Sunday.[4] Your baptism then is the fountainhead of compassion, kindness, humility, meekness, patience and above all else love, it is the source of forgiveness because it is Jesus and His righteousness for you. Remain therefore in Christ Jesus: Do everything you do, in word or deed, in the name of the Lord Jesus, giving thanks to God the Father through Him, and marriage will go well for you. For even in the hard times you will have Christ as your peace and you will have forgiveness.

Like Meagan's wedding dress your baptism is not rented, cherish it, let today be a reminder of it, hold fast to your baptism and to Christ Jesus into whom you've been baptized, He is faithful and true and will forgive you and strengthen you in every time of need. Thayne where we as husbands fail at patience, compassion, kindness, humility, meekness, and where we can even fail at love, remember that Christ Jesus did not fail and does not fail - His love is perfect, His patience is complete, His compassion and kindness knows no end, He is not prideful or needlessly stern, He is tender towards His Bride the Church and for this reason you can daily turn to Him for your forgiveness and strength both as a Father to your son Taylor, who you and Meagan will raise together as Man and wife, and as a Husband, Thayne look always to Christ for the perfect picture of self-control and self-sacrificing-love.

Today we put on a wedding ceremony, however in the midst of this day, in Christ, you will have put on a marriage and onto your marriage Jesus puts on His blessing: Now "may the Lord make your love increase and overflow for each other and for everyone else, just as ours does for you"[5] 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.

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[1] Mark 11:2

[2] Matthew 9:14-15; Mark 2:18-20; Luke 5:33-35, Matthew 25:1-13, Ephesians 5:22-33, Revelation 19:7, Revelation 21:9

[3] Matthew 19:5-6

[4] Romans 6:3-11, "Do you not know that all of us who have been baptized into Christ Jesus were baptized into His death? We were buried therefore with Him by baptism into death, in order that, just as Christ was raised from the dead by the glory of the Father, we too might walk in newness of life.

For if we have been united with Him in a death like His, we shall certainly be united with Him in a resurrection like His. We know that our old self was crucified with Him in order that the body of sin might be brought to nothing, so that we would no longer be enslaved to sin. For one who has died has been set free from sin. Now if we have died with Christ, we believe that we will also live with Him. We know that Christ, being raised from the dead, will never die again; death no longer has dominion over Him. For the death He died He died to sin, once for all, but the life He lives He lives to God. So you also must consider yourselves dead to sin and alive to God in Christ Jesus."

[5] 1 Thessalonians 3:12