We come from God, we belong to
God, we go to God.
Christianity’s as simple as
that statement and it’s exactly what we’re affirming this morning with Mark and
Lyndsey with their wedding blessing and the baptism of Neeve.
The couple have known each
other since they were teenagers working in Somerfield at Rustington. Their
friendship developed alongside their separate careers, Lyndsey’s in law and
accountancy, Mark’s at Abbey National, Lloyds, photography and now at Abbots
pharmacy and as Neeve’s carer. In my years at St Giles I’ve met Mark as a
wedding photographer and, more recently, as ‘the drug man’ on Abbots
deliveries. Today is the fruit of Rectory doorstep conversations.
We come from God, we belong to
God, we go to God.
It’s that sense that brought
Lyndsey and Mark to a civil marriage six years ago and to the Christian
blessing of that marriage and the baptism of Neeve today.
As regular worshippers Mark and
Lyndsey know that last week I returned from the Holy Land with a bottle of Cana
miracle wedding wine that we used last Sunday for Holy Communion. We were going
to use the residue this morning but due to a mishap I’ve only got the cardboard
box left show – and no I didn’t
drink it. There was an accident before the 8 o’clock. Still the thought – and indeed
the smell of spilled Cana wine – is still with us on the occasion of Mark and
Lyndsey’s nuptial blessing.
You just heard the story -
Jesus’ first miracle performed at a wedding in Cana, a village I visited two
weeks ago in the Galilee region of Israel. In the story Mary intercedes with
Jesus her son to win a blessing on an embarrassed bridegroom when the drink ran
out, rather like my own embarrassment this morning. His marriage began with a
special blessing from the Son of God as Jesus turned water into wine. This
morning the Jesus of Cana will become our spiritual drink at the eucharist as
we celebrate marriage and family with the Taggarts.
Being married is a bit like
being changed from water into wine. We enter a richer state, one in which our
life is shared, in which we lose our life to one another and so gain.
"In marriage husband and
wife belong to one another" says our marriage service.
It is not always easy to
recognise the claim we have on one another when we are husband and wife - and I
speak as a married man.
However if we accept as
Christians that our lives do not belong to us in the first place but are lent
from God it is a lot easier to be married and lose control of your life.
The real destroyer of life and
of marriage is the anti-Christian view that "it's my life and I can live
it as I wish".
In truth all of us whether we
admit it or not come from God, belong to God and go to God. He and he alone is
our beginning. He and he alone is our end - and in calling us to marriage God
is challenging us to live not for ourselves as selfish people but for one
another and for him as godly people.
Self love is God's enemy and it
is the enemy of marriage, family and society, but it is in us all!
Jesus Christ comes into our
world and into our lives to root out self love and plant his generosity within
us so that we live by his spirit. I have just returned from the place – Cana in Galilee – where Jesus
provided his first miracle and from Jerusalem, the place of his greatest
miracle. The Church of the Holy
Sepulchre marks the place of his Resurrection, an event that is held by a third
of the earth’s population today to reveal love so extravagant it shrinks death
to nothing.
When Jesus Christ
suffered and died God was in him. There was a divine judo at play. Death flew
at God and ended up upside down and out at the count.
For when they came to
his tomb there was no Jesus. Just a promise, ‘Lo I am with you always even unto
the end of the world’ – and so he is!
We come from God, we belong to
God, we go to God.
God does not send us alone on
life’s journey but in company with his Son. He also gives us companions through
friendship and through the union of life-giving love we know as marriage as
Mark and Lyndsey have reminded us this morning.
The Church also provides us
with companions for that journey from nd to God. We are God’s never ending
family made so through Jesus Christ who died and rose and gives us his Spirit. In
Horsted Keynes that family has met for worship on this hill for 1000 years.
Mark, Lyndsey and Neeve are joined to the family this morning. Neeve’s name is
entered as latest name into our baptism register as my name was entered 4 years
ago as latest name on the century old Rector’s list at the back.
Priests and people, married and
single, young and old we are all called by God to belong to him and to find
fulfilment in his praise and service.
The Lord Jesus is God’s Son
sent to accompany us in joy and sorrow. It is he who represents the claim of
God to us – God’s claim of love!
Mark and Lyndsey as a couple
belong to one another. They recognise the claims they now have upon each other.
May Jesus be truly with them as he was with that couple in Cana of Galilee so
that they will lack no blessing on their pilgrimage in life with Neeve and
whoever is to come.
May they live to see their
children's children, strengthened by the Lord and by the fellowship of families
and friends all joined together by this happy occasion.
The Lord bless you as he did
that couple at Cana in Galilee with the enjoyment of him and one another, and
all who come your way, so that your family be made itself a blessing to the
world!
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