Wedding Homily for Shane & Liz's Wedding

This was my "inaugural address" at Shane and Liz's wedding! I thought it would make an excellent blog post!

It is a great honor to be here today to deliver God’s message here at Shane and Liz’s wedding. For those who don’t me, I was Shane’s roommate throughout college. We were very good roommates for each other in terms of our cleanliness.

Actually Shane’s dad and I were reminiscing of Shane and my days at Gordon the other day and he remembered one time freshman year when he walked into our room and saw a carpet of clothes about 2 feet deep from wall to wall. My wife Bethany said, “Well Peter is still the same way.” I guess we will have to wait to see if Shane will also improve his laundry skills by being married.

Shane and Liz actually told me about a week and half ago that I would be speaking at their wedding. My wife commented that it wasn’t a whole lot of time to prepare. Then she thought for a moment and said, “Well even if he had given you a whole year to prepare Shane should know by now, from being your roommate that you wouldn’t start preparing until 4am on that day anyway. This was often the custom for my studies in college with my desk light shining on my roommate’s face unintentionally waking him. Shane certainly knew this custom, and now my wife has also experienced it from time to time.

So Liz, I wish you all the best in getting to know all of Shane’s fascinating roommate habits.

The scriptures that I want to look at today are the verses we just read in Matthew 5. This section of text is called “the beatitudes.” The name comes from the Latin meaning “blessed.” This word “blessed” that is given to each person is a hard word to translate. “Blessed” is really an obscure word in our culture today, we don’t really use it unless someone sneezes. So some translators use the word “happy” but this also is a hard translation to work with because happiness is so subjective in our culture. I think a good translation for each one of these “blesseds” would be “eternally hopeful and joyful” are these people because of the kingdom of God. One scholar has called these beatitudes “sacred paradoxes” meaning that they point to both present realities and future vindication when The Kingdom of God is finally fully established.

This is a hard concept to understand. However, we can find a very great parallel in the meaning of these verses to the marriage that we celebrate today. In the days before Bethany and I got married we pondered when would be the exact moment in time when we would be officially married.

Was it when we said “I do?” Was it our first kiss as a “married” couple? Was it when the pastor declared us husband and wife? Or perhaps like in Lord of the Rings at the very instant when Frodo puts the ring on his finger he turns invisible, we were married right when we put the rings on fingers. Or was it simply when we signed the paper saying we were married.

A case could probably be made for each of these symbolic acts. But in the ancient world, the real moment of a marriage is when the couple would be alone for the first time and “become one flesh” as it says in the book of Genesis. Now if you need clarification on what this means come talk to me at the reception….

Actually it’s from this tradition where we get the term to “consummate a marriage.”

We can speak of in this way. A marriage is inaugurated during the ceremony but it is not consummated until the wedding night. Our beloved couple will experience this today…All through the reception they will be already married, they will already have the rings, already have said “I do,” already have been announced, already signed their marriage papers…but not yet will they have experienced the fullness of the consummation of their marriage.

This is the great parallel to the passage of scripture we read today. Actually we see this parallel all over the New Testament. Scholars actually refer to this as the “already/not yet” tension. What they mean by this is that Jesus Christ has already come to earth, already dealt with the powers of sin and evil. With Christ’s ministry, death, and resurrection the Kingdom of God has already been enacted on the earth. But not yet has it been fully consummated. We are still waiting for the final day when God will fix everything that is wrong in the world. And so Christians today live in the overlap between two ages. The age of fallenness and sin, and the age of the final victory of God.

So to elaborate on some of these beatitudes: blessed (or eternally joyful) are the poor, now, even though they are poor, now, because they will be vindicated in the consummation of the Kingdom of God.

Eternally joyful are those who hunger and thirst for the righteousness of God to finally be demonstrated over the world, for they will be satisfied in the consummation of the Kingdom of God.

Eternally joyful are the peacemakers, those who bring about the reign of God, for they will be called sons of God in the consummation of the Kingdom.

Eternally joyful are those who are persecuted for the righteousness of God they do. for they will be vindicated in the consummation of the Kingdom.

Jesus here paints a very beautiful picture of what the consummation of the Kingdom of God will look like for all who are a part of that kingdom. If anyone here today has not entered into this kingdom, the great message of the whole New Testament is that while we were still sinners, Christ died for our sins. If you believe this and live life accordingly, you can enter into this great kingdom and have access to God.

And now to Shane and Liz, who will soon experience the joy of a consummated marriage, the beatitudes also provide for us an ethic for those living within this Kingdom of God. They all deal with how people relate to God, and how people relate to others. This mirrors what Jesus says are the 2 greatest commandments, summarized as love God, and love others.

“Love.” It is another word we have real trouble with in culture. I love Chinese food, but I would never die for Chinese food. The night before Jesus was crucified he told his disciples.

“Greater love has no one than this, that he lay down his life for his friends.” Jn 15:13

This is not only for Shane and Liz but for myself, my wife, and any other married person here. You may not ever need to die physically for the one you love. But everyday you should be self-sacrificing, emulating Christ’s actions for us, and thus helping to issue fourth the coming consummation of the Kingdom of God.

Shane and Liz, I wish you long years filled with health and prosperity, as members of this Kingdom

Yes, many people inquired of my knowledge at the reception!

Why is There Evil in Our World?

Now that my class is over, I think it is time to write my second post. As part of the requirements, I had to have an email conversation with the TA. The question I had to respond to was, “What is the problem of evil?” I thought it would be a good thing to post, but I am hesitant because I realize this might open Pandora’s box. I realize this is an immensely complex issue…but I only had 500 words. Here is my response.

I think this is probably the most asked question. Many non-Christians definitely wrestle with this question and many times it seems to be the sticking point as to why they do not believe in God. However, this question plagues many Christians as well. To answer the question in short form, the problem of evil is this: “If God and evil both exist, either God is loving but is without power to eliminate evil, or he has the power but lacks the good will and love to do it.” (Harold Kushner, When Bad Things Happen to Good People). Unfortunately (or perhaps fortunately), Kushner, writing from a cynic’s perspective, has flaws in his logic. It sounds good to the ears, and he sets up the illusion of choice: either this or that. However, allowing evil or not having eliminated evil, does not necessarily disprove a loving God, nor does it say anything about God’s power to do so. Suffice to say that the question of evil is not a good starting point in terms of the existence and attributes of God. For a person using the question of evil as a starting point, there can be no satisfactory answer. Assuming, for the sake of this question, that there is a loving God, the question then becomes, “Why has God allowed evil into our world?”

Historically, answers to this question have not really been satisfactory. One idea coming from post-Enlightenment thought would say that, since God cannot be known, it is silly to ask why there is evil. Similarly, the naturalist/atheist answer is that good and evil have no intrinsic values, only what we assign to them. In this view, there is no such thing as good or evil as we know them, hence the question cannot be asked, and the universe just does what it does. The most common answer would be that God has allowed evil as a byproduct of allowing free-will. I think there is a lot of merit to this line of thought but there are also difficulties as well.

As mentioned before, if this is one’s starting point for believing or not believe in a loving God, one will not find a satisfactory answer either way. In our post-Enlightenment world we always want to be able to provide answers and to be able to explain our world perfectly. However, there are some ultimate things that cannot be answered without some kind of revelation from God. For whatever reason, the biblical authors are relatively silent on the issue of why God has allowed evil, suffering, and tragedy. There are, however, some points that the Bible does convey on the subject. Firstly, we should always acknowledge God’s sovereignty in preserving and governing the world. Secondly, for what C.S. Lewis called “complex good,” we do see that God can bring a great deal of good out of something bad. Thirdly, and most importantly, the biblical perspective on this subject is yearning for the end. That is perhaps what is so perplexing about evil and suffering; that there does not seem to be any end in sight for us. But there is. I am convinced that the primary purpose of the New Testament is an eschatological purpose. We are waiting for the final victory, the consummation of the Kingdom of God, when all things will be redeemed, goodness and truth will forever reign, while evil is forever put to death. The question of evil then becomes not “why” but “when.” A proverbial “How long oh Lord?” until you achieve final victory over evil.

Note: C.S. Lewis' The Problem of Pain is a great resource on this topic.