They come together to bear witness to the love that God has birthed in them, and to commit themselves together in the covenant of marriage.
Qutie naturally, they want to bring something of themselves to the story
And so they write their own vows
Their vows are different – they include the traditional, but they each add something unique.
They don’t tell each other their vows in advance. It’s a secret. A surprise. A special gift that they preserve for the day of their wedding, and the bride or groom to be is in the dark until the big moment.
And it’s quite nice to be like that. It makes the day special. It’s a taonga. A precious gift.
It’s like a birthday, or Christmas, or that special surprise that you have planned for someone who means so much to you.
Isn’t it curious that we show people how much that we love them by keeping them in the dark about something?
I think it’s about the big reveal: We all know what it feels like to receive that special gift, or that welcome surprise that just lifts our hearts and brings joy to our lives. And when we give them the big reveal, it’s not just about the gift. In a way we’re showing our loved one that they bring us that same joy, the same lift to our hearts as they receive when they have that pleasant surprise.
So for Daniel and Lucy who received all the gifts of a wedding day, I’d say the most precious were those few, uniquely crafted words they used whne they pledged themselves to one another in love.
It can be quite nice to be in the dark.
But there are other ways we can be in the dark, as well.
Sometimes we can deliberately keep ourselves in the dark, or at least pretend to.
When we look the other way
When we try to convince ourselves that something is none of our business, or not really our problem
You know the stuff I mean – the see no evil, hear no evil stuff
Those times when we convince ourselves “I couldn’t possibly have known about that.”
You know the times –It can be little things, like when you open the car door at the supermarket and that other car was closer than you thought.
Or it can be really big things, like how our actions and our lifestyles impact on the health of the planet.
Or it can be anything in between.
If you’re not sure if you’re keeping yourself in the dark about something, here’s a test: When your head and your heart disagree
So often you can argue a point in either direction, but usually you have a gut feeling about what is truly right and wrong
When your head and your heart disagree, something has not found its place in the light
I think that this second kind of “being in the dark” is what the apostle Paul is on about in his letter to the church in Thessalonica.
Thessalonians was written to a brand new church that didn’t have the Bible, didn’t have the Book of Order, didn’t have centuries of wisdom to draw upon as they made their way together in the world.
All they had was their new-found faith in Jesus, and some teaching from travelling apostles like Paul
And they were struggling to figure some things out
Like Daniel and Lucy getting married, they were in the first flush of a new love, and they were wrestling with how to build their future together
And questions arise: How shall we live to please God? What happens when we die? When will Jesus come again? How should that shape how we live in the meantime?
In today’s reading Paul is addressing those last two questions, and my gut says that these people were wrestling with head vs. heart stuff. “We’re in the dark about Jesus’ return, so there’s no hurry to start living right. We can’t really say for sure what we should or shouldn’t be doing in the meantime.”
Excuses are being made
Paul is not having it.
We are not children of the dark, but children of the light.
The intriguing thing is this: Paul doesn’t go into all the gory detail about what these people have been hiding from, instead he reminds them of the light they have in Jesus, and asks them to encourage one another in love.
Sometimes I think that the person who knows me best, is me. And that may be true, but there are some things about myself that I can only see through the eyes of another.
Maybe I’ve got something stuck between my teeth.
Or maybe I’ve tucked my trousers into my sock and I haven’t noticed
Or maybe I act in different ways depending on the situation I’m in.
If you really want to know the real me, then talk to my wife, talk to my kids.
It’s not that I’m deliberately hiding something, but maybe even I am in the dark about myself
There are things about ourselves that we do not see. Often there are things that we choose not to see, and often those things are the things we think of as the worst in ourselves.
We hide them, keep them locked away, and they fester. They eat away at us and tell us all sorts of lies. “ You are not worthy”, “you need to hide in the dark” and we end up feeling worse and worse, and hiding more and more.
These are lies that are all the more powerful because they grow around some kernel of truth. We are afraid to let in the light.
Paul does not dwell on these lies, or give them oxygen.
Because cause sometimes the things that we miss in ourselves are the very things that give us and give others light.
There are things about every one of us that bring joy and hope and love to the world.
These are the things that Paul calls us to.
Not just to accept them for ourselves, but to encourage each other by bringing these good things to light.
Because so often, with these good things, other people see them, but we don’t. And some things about ourselves none of us truly know or understand except God.
Do you see what I’m saying here?
It’s true that we, all too often live in the dark even though we are children of the light.
Paul is calling us more and more into the light. Because you don’t get rid of the darkeness by calling attention to it, that just gives it strength. You banish the darkness by bathing it in light.
And all too often, we cannot see the light for ourselves. We need each other to show us the light that God is shining into each of our lives.
It’s like that surprise gift, that unique wedding vow, that big reveal that says “This is how your live gives me life.”
This is the Good News. This is our calling in the Church. More and more, in every way, to call forth the light of Christ in our lives, and to be slaves to this darkness no more.
Encourage one another. Build each other up in love.
“Whoever would foster love covers over an offense, but whoever repeats the matter separates close friends.” — Proverbs 17:9. Powered by BibleGateway.com.
