A Wedding Sermon for Easter (Week 33, Apr 9)
Readings
Ephesians 1:15–23
John 20:1–21
Silent Reflection
Remarks
I pray that the eyes of your heart may be enlightened in order that you may know the hope to which he has called you, the riches of his glorious inheritance in his holy people, and his incomparably great power for us who believe. That power is the same as the mighty strength he exerted when he raised Christ from the dead…
Ephesians 1:18–20 (NIV)
Conquer. Victory. Triumph.
Easter is a time when these sorts of words are sung and proclaimed in communities everywhere around Christendom. And well they should be! Jesus really has conquered the grave, triumphed over death and hell, and won the victory.
We ought to love triumph. If Jesus hasn’t been raised and hasn’t conquered, then we’re a bunch of fools.
We ought to be careful of triumphalism, though.
Triumphalism makes an idol out of winning. Triumphalism says the only way to have power to change the world is by conquering it. Winning is all that matters. This is a message we get in some pockets of Christianity. We seek an avenue of triumph not too different from the Roman way. Outsmart, outresource, overpower. Dominate the culture. Win by winning. Of course, because how else would you?
Christian triumphalism forgets everything that happened before Easter Sunday, but genuine Christian triumph recognizes and celebrates the indivisible whole of Passion Week, including the darker and more difficult days—Palm Sunday, Maundy Thursday, Good Friday.
What we believe is not only that Christ was raised, but that he also died. The way Jesus conquered his enemies wasn’t with overwhelming force (he didn’t call in that legion of angels, remember), but with completely overlookable love. His power is in weakness—not just ours, but in the weakness of Christ who suffered and died. If we expect to have any truly Godly power at all, we must die, too. It is literally and figuratively a prerequisite for resurrection (and therefore power).
Allow me to share with you a portion of a sermon I often give at weddings (and which some people find to be a weird bummer for the occasion, but it’s the deepest truth I know, so sue me):
Death is coming for you.
One way or the other, it will find you. It comes in marriage whether we want it or not. Not strictly in the physical, bodily till-death-do-you-part sort of way. Remember, in the biblical imagination, death is a quality of life. It is perfectly possible for someone to be walking around breathing—and yet dead in every way that matters.
So, in marriage, we either enter into death daily or it consumes us. You can insist on your own world, your own way. In other words, you can insist on not dying.
Say that hurtful thing; after all, it’s not untrue. Give that critique; they could use the improvement. Double down on your woundedness. Bring up the last time. Long for a fantasy. Keep that secret.
In all these ways try to avoid your own pain, but death will find you and it is all you will be left with. That’s one way it comes.
The other? Choose to die. Walk into your death just as Christ walked into his. Give up yourself. Give up your weekend. Give up offering every opinion. Give thanks for every routine and boring thing. Give up saying I’m sorry second. Give up the debt they owe you, no matter how incredible it may be. Let it all die.
It is terrifying and high risk; then again, so was a crucifixion.
But this week we remember this: we live in a world where a resurrection has happened. Jesus has made a way for us—life over death through death.
So, we can let it all die, and then watch it be resurrected into something better than we ever could have made for ourselves—because the same power that worked in Jesus to remake the world we unmade is also at work in your marriage as you lay yourselves down for one another.
As you continue to reach for the hand in a cool evening stroll, even after you have been so hurt. As you press into understanding around the kitchen table even when you are so dumbfounded by the person sitting across from you. He tells us to love one another in the same way that he loved us, which was to the death.
And so, dearly beloved, we are gathered here today to give witness to a funeral. Christlike Death is the only way to make marriage continue teeming with life as long as it endures. Marriage ends in death; this we know. It also begins there. It even lives there, in dying. Christ has died, Christ has risen, Christ will come again. May you die. May he raise you up. May he come again and again in your marriage as you follow in the way of the Slain Lamb, and as he makes his resurrection to work in you in grace, in power, and in love.
And so may it be with us, BEMA friends. Happy Easter! He is risen!
Silent Reflection
Response
Are there situations or relationships in your life where you’ve been trying to win by winning?
What would it look like to adopt the way of Jesus instead?