Beloved in Christ,
The epistle to the Hebrews tells us that marriage should be honored by all. That is why we are celebrating your marriage today.
In Jamaican culture, marriage is scorned as an inconvenient obstacle to selfish desire. Even in marriage many couples live together selfishly. They think that fulfilment can be achieved without sacrifice and commitment, so a deep and lasting love always eludes them.
Marriage involves giving love to someone whom we treasure more than anyone else. The mutual decision to honour one man and one woman as uniquely precious is the only basis on which marriage can be built. True love is never possessive. It is always sacrificial. There should always be a very special joy in the heart of each of you when your beloved is near.
The advice which Hebrews 13 gives you is brief and simple, but it cannot be bettered in any marriage manual. Here are five succinct bits of guidance from that chapter.
- Keep on loving each other.
Married love is not just romance which fades when the wrinkles appear and the waistline is lost. The word meno (`keep on’) used in verse 1 means to continue or persist indefinitely in a particular state or condition. It is not like the proverbial flash in a pan. Love always protects, always trusts, always hopes, always perseveres. Love never fails (I Cor. 13:7-8). This is true of all kinds of love. It is supremely true of married love.
- Keep the marriage bed pure.
As a newly married man with very little money, I was told by a brother who worked at Courts’ furniture store that if I wanted a good marriage I could forego lots of things, but a comfortable marriage bed was essential. It was funny, but for years we sanctified by our love a wonderful one hundred year old bed given to us by a sister, who said that long ago Bro. John Thomas slept on it. I can tell you that they don’t make beds like that any more!
- Do not forget to entertain strangers.
Showing hospitality is a marvellous way of strengthening your married love. Open your home, however humble, to your needy brothers and sisters. Also, entertaining strangers is a great way to bring others to the truth. You will find that tripe and beans, chicken feet, or pigs’ ears and stew peas are inexpensive ways of winning hearts. In this area of married life, you have some splendid examples in Jamaica to follow: just think of the Isaacs’ homes in Jones Town and Port Maria, the Wallaces’ in Free Hill and the Gordons’ in May Pen, all homes radiating truth, love and wondrous hospitality unselfishly to great and small.
- Keep yourselves free from the love of money.
The poor can be as greedy as the rich, perhaps more so. You will need money, sometimes desperately. But you can help each other do without the love of it. It is significant that avarice has always been counted one of the seven deadly sins. Better a poor man whose walk is blameless than a rich man whose ways are perverse. He who gives to the poor will lack nothing, but he who closes his eves to them receives many curses (Prov. 28:6,27).
- Be content with what you have.
The writer backs up this advice with a quote from Deuteronomy 31. The reason we can be content is that God has made a wonderful promise which both of you can absolutely trust: Never will He leave you; never will He forsake you.
So we say to you both:
May the God of peace equip you with everything good for doing His will, and may He work in you what is pleasing to Him, through Jesus Christ, to whom be glory for ever and ever. Amen.
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