The Marriage of Stephanie Hammond & Eric Buus
March 14, 2024
Eric and Stephanie, it’s been a long and unexpected journey to this day. But this is not the end. Rather, it’s a new beginning. And it’s not a journey for which you can enlist the help of jet aircraft, even if your call sign is Magic. There’s no magic in this journey, but the hard work of service.
St. John Chrysostom said that in marriage, husband and wife become companions on a journey. He says there are two kinds of marriages: those that bring great blessings to the husband and wife, their family, and their neighbors; but there are other marriages which seem to bring few blessings to anyone. The difference between the two, he says, is in the spirit of the bond in which the marriage is formed. Some people marry because of lust, or because of the money and connections that the marriage will bring. These marriages are unlikely to bring God’s blessings. But—and this is what we are here praying for for you tonight—”if,” Chrysostom says, “a man and a woman marry in order to be companions on the journey through earth to heaven, then their union will bring great joy to themselves and to others.”
That tells you in a nutshell what the purpose of your marriage is, what your vocation, your calling is in marriage. You say to yourself, “I am here to help Stephanie on her journey to the kingdom of God.” “My purpose in life is to help Eric finish in faith the journey from earth to heaven.”
That journey is imaged throughout Holy Scripture, such as Abraham and Sarah leaving behind their home and journeying to the place God would show them. Moses leads the daughter of Israel out of the house of bondage toward the land of promise. Things went bad when? When they stopped listening to God’s Word and instead argued along the way, doubting that God would care for them. It’s just the same in a marriage: when our eyes are off of the cross of Jesus going ahead of us, and we instead murmur against each other, that’s when disaster strikes, and the journey takes a wrong turn.
In such moments, the only thing to do is confess our sins to each other, and start marching again to the beat of God’s Word, not our own. When a husband and wife have eyes focused on their destination, then they will have great joy in their journey, irrespective of the hardships.
God’s Word says we are “strangers and exiles on the earth. For people who speak thus make it clear that they are seeking a homeland.” So tonight we forget everything that has come before. The book of Hebrews says, “They desire a better country, that is, a heavenly one.”
The ultimate picture of this is the Son of God, who leaves His home in heaven to become one of us, and then leaves His earthly home in Nazareth to journey to Jerusalem, a journey He knows will kill Him. He bears His cross precisely so He can die for His bride, the Church. He gives up everything for her, to redeem her, to rescue her, to forgive her, to bring her to her true and eternal home.
That kind of sacrifice doesn’t come naturally. Author Dan Teller recounts the story of his honeymoon. He and his bride Maureen were staying in a cabin in the Great Smokey Mountains of Tennessee. Teller had dreams of hiking with his new wife. He had bought her new hiking boots. He planned out the trail for their first morning together as husband and wife. It was an icy, cold December morning. As they set out, Dan was reveling in the hike. But Maureen was deeply troubled; she began to realize she did not like hiking. She trudged on, wanting to please her husband, but she was sad that their marriage would not be filled with the happy wilderness journeys together that her husband was so looking forward to. As they came round a bend and saw the mountain trail he had planned for them to climb, she burst into tears. It seemed impossible.
There was the struggle. She wanted to turn back, he wanted to press on. Somebody now will lose, if they’re keeping score. Eventually they turned back, and each felt like a failure – she, because she did not selflessly press on; and he, because he had not seen her need and turned around much sooner. Then he felt guilty because he also was disappointed.
Their marriage was off to a bad start. Years later, Teller says the real lesson is that they had a different, more challenging mountain to climb, the mountain of marriage. He writes, “Changing my outward behavior—taking on the countless little sacrifices and compromises of married life … this was just the first stage of the ascent. The really grand views began to open up as my interior self began fitting my outer actions—that is, loving until it hurt, with a smile.”
“Loving until it hurts” is what St. Paul is getting at when he talks about the sacrifices husbands and wives make for each other; the wife respecting her husband, the husband loving his wife more than his own life. To do this day after day, year after year is a hard journey to undertake, because it is a journey away from your own selfishness. But year by year it actually becomes easier and more joyous, as you are conformed to Christ’s image.
He wishes to bless you. He promises to bless you. He transformed water into wine, blessing the wedding at Cana. He will bless you, Eric and Stephanie. He who promises this is faithful, and He will perform it. Live in His peace.