I pledge you my faithfulness

First, I must mention that even though I teased with stories from our garden, our kitchen and our little girls, each time I sit down and actually have a moment to reflect and to share, I realize there are far, far more important things weighing on my heart. The raspberries piled in my refrigerator or the tomatoes in my basement just don't capture me...

This week is a milestone in Joel's and my pursuit of at least 75 years together. With many of our friend's marriages hanging on by a thread, or not hanging on at all, I've been praying and meditating on marriage and I'm going to share a few thoughts, all borrowed from one of my favorite sermon series (if you'd like you can follow the title link to the sermons themselves.)

In the words of John Piper:

"You recall perhaps that my wife, Noël, said, “You cannot say too often that marriage is a model of Christ and the church” (see Ephesians 5:31-32). I said that I think she is right for three reasons. I’ll mention two. The first was that saying this lifts marriage out of the sitcom sewer and elevates it into the bright, clear sky of God’s glory where it was meant to be. And secondly, saying that marriage is a model of Christ and the church places it firmly on the basis of grace, because that is the way Christ took the church to be his bride, by grace alone. And that is how he sustains his relationship with the church—by grace alone...

Marriage is the doing of God and the display of God. That is its glory—it is from him and through him and to him. The purpose of human marriage is temporary. But it points to something eternal, namely, Christ and the church. And when this age is over, it will vanish into the superior reality to which it points...toward the glory of Christ and the church.

Marriage is based on grace—the vertical experience of grace from Christ through his death on the cross, and then that very grace bent out horizontally from husband to wife and wife to husband... Colossians 2:13b-14 tells us how God provided a basis for the forgiveness of our sins: “. . . having forgiven us all our trespasses, by canceling the record of debt that stood against us with its legal demands. This he set aside, nailing it to the cross.” The record of debt that mounts up against us because of our sin God set aside by nailing it to the cross—and the point, of course, is not that nails and wood take away sin, but the pierced hands and feet of the Son of God take away sin (see Isaiah 53:5-6).

Then, having shown us the basis of God’s forgiveness in the cross, Paul says in Colossians 3:13b, “As the Lord has forgiven you, so you also must forgive.” In other words, take the grace and forgiveness and justification that you have received vertically through the death of Christ and bend it out horizontally to others. Specifically, husbands to wives and wives to husbands...

When Paul gets to Colossians 3:12, he has laid a massive foundation in the person and work of Christ on the cross. This is the foundation of marriage and all of life. The main battles in life and in marriage are battles to believe this Person and this work. I mean really believe it—trust it, embrace it, cherish it, treasure it, bank on it, breathe it, shape your life by it.

On the cross, it was finished. I don't think we truly understand the magnitude of what was accomplished on the cross. And if we don't, we can't possibly understand the importance of marriage and the grace of God which can sustain it.

And so Piper continues, "When you marry a person you don’t know what they are going to be like in thirty years. Our forefathers did not craft wedding vows with their heads in the sand. Their eyes were wide open to reality—“to have and to hold from this day forward, for better for worse, for richer for poorer, in sickness and in health, to love, honor, and cherish, ’til death do us part, and thereto I plight thee my troth [I pledge you my faithfulness].” You don’t know what this person will be like in the future: It could be better than you ever dreamed, or worse. Our hope is based on this: We are chosen, holy, and loved. God is for us, and all things will work of the good of those who love him.

The basis of my vows to Joel is not my ability to keep them, but God's grace to sustain us. It is not my faith or my faithfulness that I will boast of in that day, but in the completed work of Christ on the cross. And so in Him, not Joel, my hope is found.

But boy do I love him, and surely I will continue to pray "Lord, keep us."

Happy Anniversary my love.