Grace Mercy and Peace to you from God our Father through our Lord and Savior Jesus Christ. Amen. Our texts for today are the readings we just heard. Dear Friends and Family of the bride and groom, members, and especially you Chad and Memory.
Our text today speaks of a miracle. Two separate individuals are joined together for a lifetime into one flesh. Two different people are joined, two lives are united to spend their remainder together. Two become one. And Chad, Memory, that is why we are here today, for you two to be joined together by God into one flesh, just like Adam and Eve were in the Garden of Eden.
Our text today really is a miracle, isn't it? God created the entire world, and everything in it out of nothing, and gave it as a gift to the first man, Adam. But God did not want him to experience it alone. He wanted Adam to have someone to share his time with, someone to laugh with, someone to smile at. God wanted the man to have according to the text, "A helper fit for him."
So God took the man and put him a deep sleep, and taking part of the man's flesh, he forms for him a helper, a soul mate, and God takes the woman to Adam and right away he marries them. Not only does God marry them, but he sets the standard for every single wedding that has occurred since, "Therefore a man shall leave his father and his mother and hold fast to his wife, and they shall become one flesh." Upon God speaking these words Adam and Eve were one flesh.
Jesus tell us in our Gospel ,"What God has joined together, let not man separate". Through God's grace, Adam and Eve lived many long years together. They spent the good years and the bad years together. They dealt with fights within their family (Genesis 4). Through God's grace they supported one another, even as they made mistakes (Gen 3) and errors. Through God's forgiveness to each of them, they were able to forgive one another as well. They loved one another, not based upon that fuzzy happy feeling we often think of as love, but rather on the Love that God first showed to them, and they then shared with one another. Throughout the years of their lives, and we know Adam lived to be 930 years old, they spent it loving, forgiving and sharing their lives with one another. God had joined them together, and no man could separate them.
Memory, Chad the same is true for you as well. Here today you stand before this altar and this congregation to pledge that you will be married to one another for life. This too is a miraculous working of God. God created each of you, knitting you together in your mother's wombs, and giving each of you life. He was with you as you each were raised by your parents, and as you grew up into the individuals who stand here today. God was there working in your lives as you were set up on a date and met and over time fell in love. God has worked through it all.
Today, God will work in your lives again, as through the fumbling words of a sinful pastor, God will join you together into one flesh. In a few short minutes, God will take you Memory, and you Chad, and through his work, makes you Chad and Memory. It's a miracle. It's amazing how God works this in your life, and how God will keep you in this relationship, one flesh, until one of you finally reaches the end of your earthly life.
But you cannot make this journey as one flesh alone. You cannot hope that the two of you together are strong enough in your selves to make it. You see Chad and Memory, there will be struggles. There will be challenges. There will be times where money will be tight, and you wonder how you will make ends meet. There will be times of pain and sorrow. There will be fights with in your family. There will be stress and tension. There will be times of helplessness. These times will be there for you… "But what God has joined together, let not man separate." This isn't a command this is a promise. Chad and Memory, today God will join you together, and nothing in this sinful world will be able to separate you.
Chad, Memory, God has promised that he will be there in your relationship, in good times and in bad, just as he was in Adam and Eve's relationship. God will be there with forgiveness for each of you, forgiveness based upon the blood of Jesus Christ shed for you upon a cross. God will be there for you with Grace, grace earned and promised by the very Word made flesh. God will be there for you, with Love, love that he will pour out upon each of you, and that you will share with one another as it overflows from Jesus' love for you.
In this grace, love and forgiveness, will you live out your lives as one flesh. When faced with a challenge in your life, God promises to be there with you, as you go forward in His mercy, knowing that Christ has overcome the world and all challenges with in it. And, in this love, forgiveness and joy of Christ, you will also face joys. Joy as you both one day meet Chad Jr. or little Memory. Joys as you share with one another in worship. Joy as you live together as one flesh.
Chad and Memory, in the love of Jesus God today unites you as one flesh. After today, you are no longer only Chad, only Memory, but you will be Chad and Memory Cota. And what God has joined together, let no man or no thing separate. May God richly bless you in your married lives together. Amen.
