BP42
Advice to the groom: What is the best way to remember your future wife’s birthday? Forget it once.
Advice to the bride: Your fiance is incomplete until he is married to you. After that, he is finished ~ Zsa Zsa Gabor
Why are we here today? Yes, for a wedding. But why are we here at all–on this planet? To answer this question, I’m going to address three things: Contact, Cords and Covenant.
First point—we are here on this planet to make contact with others. Nothing else is more important, or could I say, nothing else even matters—much.
Some of you may remember the 1997 film, Contact. It is based on a science fiction novel written by the astronomer and astrobiologist Carl Sagan. Sagan dedicates the novel and film to SETI—the Search for Extra Terrestrial Intelligence—life beyond earth.
Contact follows the life of Ellie Arroway beginning at age nine.
When Ellie is young, her father teaches her how to use a HAM radio to make contact with other people all over the United States–from Chicago to Pensacola. Day after day, little Ellie speaks into her mike reaching out to faceless others.
One night, she turns to her father and solemnly asks, “Can we talk to mom?” Her father looks at her and responds wistfully, “I don’t think even the biggest radio can reach that far.”
As Ellie gets older, she begins using a telescope to view the stars and the planets with her father. On one of these nights, her father dies suddenly. One more tragic loss for little Ellie who is now an orphan.
After her father’s funeral, sad and lonely Ellie is back on her amateur radio. She says into the mike, “This is Ellie. Come back. This is Eleanor Arroway. Dad, are you there? . . . Come back. Dad, are you there? Dad, this is Ellie.”
As sad as she must be, Ellie does not cry. The door of her heart has already closed due to the cruel losses of life. Still, she desperately wants someone to be with her in her aloneness, someone to make contact with her. Who will show up for little Ellie?
It turns out that no one will. You see, 9-year-old Ellie makes a vow. Many children, when in the furnaces of fear and pain, make a promise to themselves that no one else knows about. They may not even be consciously aware of it.
A childhood vow is usually binding into adulthood. Only by raising a vow into conscious awareness and working to deconstruct it will this powerful promise be undone.
A common vow for a wounded child is, I will never need anyone again, or, Nobody will ever see me cry.
Ellie’s vow seems to run like this: Since it hurts too much to love human beings because they keep leaving me, I’m not going to make contact with them anymore. Instead, I’ll pursue non-humans who might not even exist. How could they ever hurt me?
God is not on Ellie’s contact list, either—not a big surprise in a novel written by the agnostic Carl Sagan. Some children like Ellie might make a vow concerning God like, I hate you, God, for killing my parents. I cannot trust you, so I will not allow you to exist for me.
Only ETs are of interest to Ellie the atheist—”little green men,” as she describes them. Even when a desirable human male comes into her life while doing her SETI research in Costa Rica, she allows him to make contact only with her body–not with her heart. She will not permit any human or divine personality to come close to her. How tragic. How lonely.
Unfortunately, like Ellie, the first two humans in the Garden chose to turn away from God in their pursuit of what they wanted. Ever since then, contact with God has been broken.
Now we are faced with a serious problem: our default position as humans is that none of us is born knowing how to love. Instead, we are prone to being offended and angry and selfish. We want to control things and do life our way.
Like Ellie, we divorce: we rebel against God, we hide from others, we detach from our own hearts due to pain, shame, and maybe even for fear that we might look inside and find ourselves unlovable.
Just as Ellie’s radio signal could not reach her mother or father, so our radio signal cannot reach God even if we wanted to make contact—which many of us do not. Not really.
Fortunately, instead of Ellie having to pursue her little green men using 27 mammoth dish antennas to search the heavens for alien communication, God came down from heaven and pursued us. He initiated contact with us in the person of Jesus Christ—the One who created the stars where Ellie and Carl Sagan searched for ETs.
If you remember anything about the God of the universe today, remember these two things:
He is:
Transcendent: In some ways, this attribute of God is really bad news for humans because transcendent means that God is far above us in every way. He is unapproachable in holiness. He is an unfathomably huge Being who we simply cannot comprehend.
- How many of you know about UY Scuti, the red supergiant star? This star is so mammoth we really have nothing to which we can compare it. Do you know how long it would take to fly around this star in a commercial jetliner? To set the stage for a comparison, it takes around 51 hours to fly around the planet earth. To fly around UY Scuti would take a little longer–1,068 years!! How amazingly huge is the God who created this supergiant star and billions of others stars as well!
- The point here is that we can never reach God through our own efforts. We are like those fish in the deepest trenches of the ocean that live in perpetual darkness—blind and oblivious to life above–and God is like the most distant star in all creation—so impossibly far apart.
Immanent: Here we encounter the most amazing news in the universe for humanity! Since it is impossible for blind fish to make contact with God, He made contact with us by sending His Son in our skin.
Can you run toward the president of the United States and ask him to help you? No. You would be shot. But you can draw near and make contact with the infinite God who created the universe and lives outside of it. Jesus is approachable! He is calling you to draw close to Him. Today.
Ellie—and all the rest of us—look for contact in all the wrong places. We settle for less. Instead of making deep heart contact with others and with the approachable God, we invest in something instead of someone–things like little green men, work, exotic vacations, cabins, addictions, sports teams, food, wine, entertainment, pornography, affairs, even political causes.
Many of these things are not bad in and of themselves—unless they come between us and our relationship with others and the approachable God. Then they’re dead wrong. Like Ellie, we totally miss what we were designed for and settle for being Lamborghinis used for compost sites.
So how does all this talk about contact apply to the groom and bride? You’re here today because, unlike Ellie Arroway, you have not vowed to isolate your heart from God and others. No, you have already vowed yourselves to Jesus Christ, the Author of Contact. And in just a few minutes, you will vow yourselves to each other out of your love for the awesome Promise-Maker and Keeper. Your vows are relational vows, not Ellie’s self-exile vows.
The second point today is cords.
The bride and groom selected a passage from Ecclesiastes for today’s ceremony. This Bible passage is often read at weddings because it mentions that two are better than one–if one falls, the other will be there to pick her or him up.
However, in marriage, two are not enough. How good that Ecclesiastes goes on to mention that a three-fold cord is not easily broken. Scripture tells us that love binds everything together in perfect harmony. God is that love. So, the love of God is the third cord that will hold your marriage together.
The bride and groom who have Jesus—the third cord that binds them together—will not rely on their own strength to love but will depend on the power of His love. So, don’t leave the altar today without Him. Yes, Jesus is the third cord, and He brings love. But not just any love. He brings unconditional, covenantal love.
Speaking of covenantal love, a covenant is the bedrock your marriage must be built on. Not a contract. As a clinical psychologist, I have seen marriages built on covenants and on contracts. Contracts never work in a marriage unless love is not primary. In fact, the spirit of a contract is often the main reason people divorce.
A contract says, I will do my part if you do your part. But if you don’t do your part, I won’t do mine. Contracts are all about what is fair–and they will ruin every personal relationship you have.
A covenant says, Marriage is not about what I can get from you, but what I can give to you. I am here to serve you—even if you disappoint me by not always doing your part.
In a covenant, happiness does not ultimately come from your spouse. No, your joy comes from your relationship with Jesus, so there is far less pressure on your marriage and your spouse to be perfect. Marriage is never about fairness—it is about giving back better than you’re given.
If your spouse ever becomes abusive—physically, emotionally, or verbally—consult a professional.
Jesus is the ultimate and perfect example of marriage servanthood. He said, Whoever would be great among you must be your servant, and whoever would be first among you must be your slave, even as the Son of Man [Jesus] came not to be served but to serve, and to give His life as a ransom for many ~ Matthew 20:26-28
So, always remember to practice covenantal love in your marriage. Be like Jesus. Yes, He gave us the best example: He loved us so much that He died for us—even when we were sinners, when we had nothing to give Him, when we did not even desire Him.
To the groom and bride: I believe you two have chosen heart contact with each other because Jesus made contact with you first. He brought you two together. He will be the third Cord in your marriage because He is your Covenant-Maker—the One who teaches you not to build your relationship on fairness but on unconditional love and servanthood.
In closing, I’m going to mention a few people and how they responded to Divine Contact.
Carl Sagan and his wife, Ann Druyan, decided that God was unknowable even though the Maker of the universe initiated contact with them by sending His Son.
After Sagan succumbed to pneumonia at age 62 due to complications from myelodysplasia, his wife said: When my husband died, because he was so famous and known for not being a believer, many people would come up to me—it still sometimes happens—and ask me if Carl changed at the end and converted to a belief in an afterlife. They also frequently ask me if I think I will see him again. Carl faced his death with unflagging courage and never sought refuge in illusions. The tragedy was that we knew we would never see each other again. I don’t ever expect to be reunited with Carl.
I have only deep respect for Carl Sagan and Ann Druyan. Unfortunately, they sadly settled for less. Ironically, Carl turned away from the most glorious extra-terrestrial Being—God Himself—and settled for trying to contact Ellie’s little green men.
Since I want to end with hope today, I’m going to close with several examples of those who accepted contact with Jesus. These people represent one of the greatest testimonies to the truth of Jesus: changed lives.
J. Warner Wallace, a former atheist who worked in an LA Cold-Case Homicide Unit, said, I’m not a Christian because it ‘works’ for me. I had a life prior to Christianity that seemed to be working just fine, and my life as a Christian hasn’t always been easy. I’m a Christian because it is true. I’m a Christian because I want to live in a way that reflects the truth. I’m a Christian because my high regard for the truth leaves me no alternative.
Wallace’s words echo those of C.S. Lewis who said: I believe in Christianity as I believe that the sun has risen; not only because I see it [Jesus], but because by it I see everything else.
When we know Jesus, through Him our eyes are opened to see the truth of the universe. He reveals to us the four towering pillars on which our reality is built: Where we came from; why we’re here; what’s right and wrong; and where we’re going when we die. What an undeserved but awesome advantage it is to receive the love and truth of Jesus Christ! It is the gamechanger.
Dr. Robert Lesslie directed a busy ER in the Charlotte NC area for 25 years. He wrote several books including Angels in the ER II which will be in print soon. In his blog, he talks about heaven and Doxology. Dox is his one-in-a-million Golden Retriever who died. Lesslie writes:
One day, when I depart this body and find myself in the presence of the Lord, my time, however it will be measured, will be filled with the praises and the wonder of Jesus. I know that I will once again be able to hug my mother and walk and talk with my father. There are a lot of people I want to see as well.
In heaven . . . I will find myself walking with Barbara in a field of lush, green grass, surrounded by gently rising conifer-cloaked hills. The words of Jesus will echo through that glade—“Behold, I make all things new.” And there will come Dox, charging towards us, his ears flapping in the breeze, his golden hair and majestic tail waving in the wind, and both of his laughing, dancing eyes meeting ours.
As many of you know, last Wednesday Dr. Lesslie, his wife and two of his grandchildren entered heaven and are now running with Dox.
What about you? Will you make contact with the loving God who created you for relationship and is pursuing you at this moment? Don’t settle for less. And those of you who know Him, don’t ever cut off contact with Him when life gets difficult and confusing—because it will. Jesus will prove Himself trustworthy. He is the servant God who keeps His promise to love you always.
Always remember, life on this planet is about contact. But don’t be surprised or daunted when many things oppose that contact. The Good News is that God sent Jesus to restore that contact.
Will you turn away from relying on your own understanding and trust the loving God (who made UY Scuti) to direct your steps? He is not a religion. He is not a list of dos and don’ts. Jesus is my Lord and my best friend. He can be your best friend as well. Respond to His contact today.
Closing Advice to the Groom and Bride:
To the groom:
Be like the Ranger non-commissioned officer and Christ-follower in Afghanistan who sought out my Army chaplain friend (Colonel Glen Bloomstrom) to pray with his men and women before they went into battle. If the Ranger could not track down Colonel Bloomstrom or another chaplain, he himself would pray for his troops.
During his prayer, he would always say, “Lord, if someone is to die tonight, let it be me.” Sadly, on one of those nights, it was him who died, but his life was not wasted. He sacrificed himself for others.
As Jesus said in John 15, “This is my commandment, that you love one another as I have loved you. Greater love has no one than this, that someone lay down his life for his friends.”
Jesus laid down His life for you that you might become a child of God and live with Him forever. Like Jesus, will you sacrifice yourself for your wife? Not just your physical life, but will you lay down your life in service to her as well?
Be her best servant.
To the bride:
Elizabeth Elliot—whose husband, Jim, died in the jungles of Ecuador while bringing the message of Jesus to the Auca Indians—said:
A wife, if she is very generous, may allow that her husband lives up to perhaps eighty percent of her expectations. There is always the other twenty percent that she would like to change, and she may chip away at it for the whole of their married life without reducing it by very much. She may, on the other hand, simply decide to enjoy the eighty percent, and both of them will be happy.
So, focus your heart primarily on what your husband is doing right, and you will become his best encourager and he will love you for it.
Marriage between a man and a woman reflects Jesus’ marriage to the church. He is the reason we can draw near to God and make contact with Him today and forever!
Have this mind among yourselves, which is yours in Christ Jesus, who, though He was in the form of God, did not count equality with God a thing to be grasped, but emptied Himself, by taking the form of a servant, being born in the likeness of men. And being found in human form, He humbled Himself by becoming obedient to the point of death, even death on a cross ~ Philippians 2:5-8