From Reverend Pat Kriss: Marriage Draws Its Strength From ...
(Posted February 9, 2019)
“Marriage is a relationship in which one person is always right. And the other is the husband.”
There’s a never-ending supply of marriage jokes in this world, and no wonder. Being married requires a wonderful sense of humor to get us through the highs and lows of the journey together. I’ve explained sometimes in pre-marital counseling that you’re not really married until you have meat loaf firmly lodged in your wedding rings, or until that point that all those personality quirks that you saw in each other as cute when you were dating, are now full-blown flaws that you see daily – and you still love one another.
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Reverend T. Merton Rymph, my late pastor and the man whose prayer of dedication for the offering is the one I recite every Sunday at the Doxology, had a saying. Speaking about the inevitable little spats that almost all couples have, Mert said that one of the great things about long term marriage is, the longer you’re married, the shorter the fights get. That’s because, he said, the better you know a person, the better you know where the buttons are to push to get a rise out of them, and therefore, the tiff is over much more quickly. Mert and his wife Jackie were married over 60 years.
Why DO we get married, anyway? The legalistic minds among us might respond, so that we have rights and responsibilities to the other party in marriage, and protection for any children. The romantic among us might say that it’s because we have found a soul mate who is the yin to our yang, the butter to our bread, and that’s all that matters. But those of us who have paid attention to our bible will know, that marriage draws its strength from the most basic principle in that book, and that’s the concept of Covenant. God made a covenant with Abraham and with all humankind, so that God would be their God and they would be God’s people. When we wed, we make a solemn promise to the one we love to place their lives and happiness first in our lives. AND, in a sanctified marriage, we make that that covenant not only with our spouse but with God. It’s a three-way covenant. So yes. There’s a reason that we marry, and make that promise for life, as the old wording goes, “for richer, for poor, in sickness and in health, till death us do part.” A tall order to be sure, but long after the bouquet’s flowers have faded and crumbled, it’s in the autumn of our lives that we can look at the garden of mutual care as our reward.
So come this Sunday to our Valentines service, and at the end, join with us as we renew our wedding vows, together. You’ll be glad you did. - Pastor Pat Kriss