[Gen. 2:7, 18-24; Eph 5:1-4, 21-33; Mark 9:1-10]
No, it is not the case of the fellow of 27 years of marriage passing on wisdom to those who far exceed him in experience of that blessed state. Today is rather all about the Lord’s wisdom - and from Him we get an earful - and even those who know marriage inside and out are blessed to hear Him speak of it anew.
In the first reading, we hear the great “oops.” All through Genesis 1, like a mighty bell ringing, we had heard the refrain: “And it was good. And it was good. And it was TOV MAOD - exceptionally, overflowingly, wonderfully good.” But then the oops. In all the goodness of the good creation, the Good Creator sees something that is NOT good: aloneness. You both have known the pain of that since your spouses died. It is not good to be alone. And so God provided Adam his Eve, and so the God who provides you your spouses before gives His gifts anew. Today Larry gets his Peggy and Peggy, her Larry. Aloneness is not good; God doesn’t want you to be alone.
But it runs deeper than that, as you know. Our second reading lifted the whole of marriage up and took it into Christ and His church. Which is to say that what happens to you today is bigger than either of the two of you alone or together. Today there is an enactment of Christ and the Church in what you do. All that Christ is for His bride, He wants you to be for Peggy, Larry. All that the Church is for her Bridegroom, He wants you to be for Larry, Peggy. A week ago we witnessed my niece’s wedding, and the big thing were the crowns. As the priest explained: crowns of martyrdom. Marriage is the realm of martyrdom - and you both know it. It is the place for you each to die to the impulse of having your own way, and to rejoice in the love that seeks what is best for the other, what will bless their socks off. You’re heading into that martyrdom well aware of what it means from your previous marriages - and yet it will be different in this marriage. A different and new kind of dying to self for each of you - and a bit of martyrdom for your families too, who are not used to conceiving of you in marriage to each other. What a gift from the Lord! A bigger family and the joys roll on! Together you will draw each other and your families deeper into the ways of the Lord, who takes two and makes of them one.
And that’s the biggy in the Gospel for the day. The two become one flesh - that’s also in the Old Testament reading - but our Lord adds the zinger: “What therefore God has joined together, let not man separate.” We like to think of marriage as OUR joining together, but Jesus turns that on its head. Today HE is the one who binds two lives into one. HE sets His guard upon this marriage and tells His holy angels to guard and keep it well. Oneness, then, isn’t your achievement, but His gift. It comes when each receives the other from His hand - the hands with the nail scars that forever testify to how precious you are to Him, at what cost He purchased you to be His own. United in Him as sister and brother, you will also for a time be united in Him as husband and wife. For a time. Who knows how long? You say: “Til death us do part” because death has the power to part you as man and wife; but of course, since you are both in Christ, it has no power to part you as sister and brother in Him.
So, walk in love as Christ has loved us and given Himself for us a fragrant offering and sacrifice to God - and He who binds the two of you into one will bless and keep you all the days of your earthly pilgrimage until you are brought with His blessed Mother and all his saints and angels to celebrate with all the faithful the marriage feast of the Lamb in His kingdom which has no end, to which may God grant us all to attain by His grace and love for mankind. Amen.
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