Joshua and Katheryn are One  5/23/2015

 

The Binding

 

As we bind you together today

You will turn your hearts toward each other

And as Jesus said to Peter Where there is a binding

There is also a loosing

On this day when we bind you together

We loose you from loneliness

From two ones we will make two made one

Blessed be the Lord God who does this thing!

 

Sacrifice Ceremony

 

Kat and Josh explained that the items they were burning were symbolic of their past, single life professing that they were giving up these things for the marriage union

 

Swords Ceremony

 

We have been warriors

Protecting our selves

But love is surrendering to each other.

Under the banner of the Lord God of heaven

 

Pronouncement

 

Inasmuch as you have been bound together

And sacrificed your single selves

And inasmuch as you have surrendered to each other

Through the strength of heaven,
The light of the sun,
The radiance of the moon,
In the name of the Holy Trinity

I pronounce you husband and wife.

 

The Introduction

 

I have the privilege and pleasure to introduce you all to

Katheryn Dawn Dusk and

Joshua Dylan Dusk-Peebles

 

Final Blessing

 

May you feel no rain, for each of you will be a shelter to the other.

May you feel no cold, for each of you will be warmth to the other.

May there be no loneliness for you;

Though you are two persons, there is one life before you.

Go to your dwelling lodge to enter into the days of your togetherness.

And may the Lord God reign therein.

 

 

 

Katheryn and Joshua Wedding

 

I want to talk a bit about love

I am proud to be Katheryn’s grandfather

By virtue of the love her grandmother and I shared

We had a kind of fairy-tale relationship

And I would like to share some of the things

We talked about concerning our love

For each other and Christian love in general.

 

We noticed that, even though

It sounds like heresy in our romantic culture,

In those societies where parents

Make the marital relationship agreements

With other parents

Husbands end up loving their wives

And wives love their husbands

Dawn and I found this truth:

It does not matter how love starts

It matters how it grows

 

We found in the Song of Solomon

a vision of where love is growing to.

There are two parallel expressions of love

In the Song of Solomon

The first one is in Chapter . 2:16

“My Beloved is mine and I am his.”

Yes, it sounds like ownership

But it is mutual ownership

One might say I own and I am owned.

But I don’t think the people who say it are thinking,

Love is getting to run someone else’s life

But on the other hand it’s nice to know

You have an effect on someone else

Because someone else cares for you.

We might illustrate this love like this

When I text you it means that I am missing you

When I do not text you it means that

I am waiting for you to miss me.

Love is a small seed that yearns to grow

Love is powerful because love is God and God is love

Love changes you

It makes you a better person

And love brings peace and rest to you

Here is what we discovered:

 

The second verse in the Song of Solomon, chapter 7:10 reads,

I am my beloveds and his desire is toward me.

This is what love wants to grow into

It is the agape love of I Corinthians 13

The highest love the Bible knows

It is the love where the other person

Is more important to you than yourself

It is the love that sacrifices itself for the loved one.

C.S. Lewis was an old bachelor

Who studied love academically

But finally learned the real thing

in his marriage to Joy Davidman

He said, “Love is not affectionate feeling, but a steady wish

for the loved person’s ultimate good as far as it can be obtained.” 

He said it like a teacher

But lived it like a lover

Here is how agape lovers argue

“Honey where would you like to eat out tonight

“Oh, wherever you would like, munchkins.

“But sweetheart, I want to go where you want

“Well, me too darling I want to go where you choose

And so it goes until one of them chooses

The place they think the other would like.

 

In marriage agape love has to be mutual

Or it will be a rocky road.

Both Dawn and I had experienced that.

 

You know the saying, from President Kennedy

“Think not what you can do for yourself

Think what you can do for your country”

It warms our patriotic hearts

But what if Joseph Stalin had said it

Then it would be cold and calculating.

The saying only works

If your country is also thinking

What it can do for you.

Agape lover says Matt. 6: ²⁵ , do not worry about your life, what you will eat or drink; or about your body, what you will wear”

Yes, God is the original agape lover

And His desire is that we learn to love Him

In that way also.

So this is where marital love is bursting to grow

I am yours and I know your desire is toward me

 

One evening Dawn and I were editing one of my poems

As we were finishing I was thanking her for helping so much

She turned to me and said

It is my greatest pleasure in life to make other people shine.

Could she have said, I love you, better than that?

 

 

The Symbolism

 

Some people have asked about the symbolism of Katheryn and Joshua’s wedding. They asked all the guests to come as ancient Viking-like warriors with which their friends complied wonderfully. Everyone did their own costume in honor of their wishes. We were truly going to war in a sense; the kind of war Jesus announced when he said “The kingdom of Heaven is at hand.” The life of Jesus from His birth to the Ascension was a taking over of the dominion of this world. As creator, Jesus rightfully owns everything in this world. What we did in the wedding was to take these pagan symbols and deliver them over to Jesus. We took the devil’s music, as it were, and redeemed it.