The World’s Shortest Wedding Sermon

This past fall I officiated at my first wedding. As the event approached, the groom texted instructions about the sermon: “Nothing long—just a little message that’s short and sweet.” 

So on that happy day I said to the groom: “DIE,” and to the bride I said: “LIVE.”

That’s it. 

That was the whole wedding sermon.

Then I turned and addressed the wedding guests. We had all made a ridiculously long trek across the country to this “destination” wedding for only one reason—we loved these kids and wanted them to have a great marriage. So I spent a little time unpacking the micro-message so that they could prayerfully support the newlyweds in living it out.

So first: DIE.

Before the sermon, the mother of the groom read Ephesians 5:25–33, a common passage for weddings. If you look, you’ll see that in there Paul urges husbands to love their wives in the same way that Christ loved the Church. And what did our Savior do for us? He died on the Cross. He gave Himself up for us. Obviously, this was not easy. Even though Jesus came to earth with the goal of dying, it was still an extremely hard thing for Him to do. 

Reflecting on this deep truth obviously made me think of Harry Potter.

In Harry Potter and the Half-Blood Prince Dumbledore gave young Harry the job of ensuring that the old wizard continued to swallow the Drink of Despair until he was able to obtain a horcrux. While Dumbledore was drinking it, the elixir worked horrors upon him and he begged Harry to let him stop—but Harry had made a promise and so he encouraged Dumbledore to stick it out to the end. 

I impressed upon the people at the wedding that it was our responsibility as invited guests to be like Harry Potter for the groom. Marriage is hard, and we need to help him keep going. I told them that a time is coming when one of us will need to look that young man in the eyes and remind him of his promises that he was making on that wedding day. When that day arrives it will be easier to talk about his job, or their kids, or video games.

But we will need to remind him of how beautiful his wife is (inside and out). We will need to remind him that Jesus loved us to the end—that He died for us, His beloved Bride. We will need to remind the groom that he needs to die for his beloved bride too. He must die for his wife to live.

And next: LIVE.

Being well acquainted with the bride, I knew that when she sets her mind to doing something, she is unstoppable. So I was not worried about her living out Ephesians 5:22–24. Instead, I wanted to expand the wedding guests’ vision for what it meant for the bride to LIVE as a wife. I then took us back to the creation of woman at the dawn of time through an excerpt from a recent book by the Wife-of-My-Youth in which she wrote:

As Adam named the animals, he learned that it was not good to be alone. God said, “I will make a helper fit for him” (Gen. 2:18). The phrase “helper fit for him” is a translation of the Hebrew ezer kenegdo. . . . “Strong ally” is another helpful translation that can clarify the meaning of the word ezer. God has made me a strong ally, and He calls me to spend my days loving, serving, advocating for, and encouraging others where He has planted me. [1]

I impressed upon the assembly that this is the glorious calling that we need to remind the bride about in years to come. We must seek to compel her to live for her husband as his strong ally. We must cheer her on to spend her days loving, serving, advocating for, and encouraging him.

We must help her resist squeezing her husband into the Homer Simpson-sized box our society dictates is the place for married men, and instead guide her to be the Elizabeth Bennet who gives her Darcy the aid, strength, and support he needs to become the man who God created him to be. 

I could have stopped there, but when I think of weddings, I think of the Song of Solomon, and I could not resist adding an addendum to my two-word sermon. You may not know this, but at the crescendo of that chiastic poem there is a very important line for the wedding guests to proclaim. After the gorgeous wedding and the glorious consummation, all of the guests call out: “Eat, friends, drink, and be drunk with love!” (Song of Solomon 5:1)

It is easy to imagine that to say “be drunk with love” to two young people deeply in love and constantly kissing each other may seem quite unnecessary. But as important as it will be to remind them to DIE and LIVE, it is (and will be) important to remind them to BE DRUNK with love. 

At the end of Ephesians 5 it says that, mysteriously, a husband and a wife are a picture to the rest of us of Christ and the Church. So, of course, Satan will want to smudge and twist that beautiful picture—and what better way than to strike at the marriage sacrament [2] itself? Therefore, we will need to remind that sweet new married couple that lovemaking [3] is their whole life now. Every word they speak and every action that they take—from putting out the trash and folding laundry to paying bills and chatting over the detritus of their days—is either preparing them for the marriage sacrament or tearing it apart. In light of this, it is imperative that we remind the husband that pursuing kindness with his wife is the path to life (Proverbs 21:21), and a wife who speaks with kindness is wise (Proverbs 31:26). And in the end, if there are fights, we know (from God modeling it to us) that kindness leads to repentance (Romans 2:4).

Hence, at the center of all good marriages is kindness, and everything a husband and wife do and say with each other is lovemaking. 

That being said, we must not let them forget as we take this holistic approach to lovemaking to make time for the actual marriage act itself. So we need to remind these two how wonderful and desirable their spouse is, for it is a fact easy to forget. We need to impress upon them the importance of making the Song of Solomon their song. We need to urge that young man to sing out, over and over: “Behold, you are beautiful, my love; behold, you are beautiful; your eyes are doves” (Song of Solomon 4:1), and his young wife to respond: “Behold, you are beautiful, my beloved, truly delightful” (1:16). 

And all their family and friends need to call out, again and again and again, “Eat, friends, drink, and be drunk with love!” (1:16).

As I said, marriage is hard—even if you do start out with a fancy destination wedding. But the chances of a blessed, life-long union are quite high if the man is laying down his entire life for his wife while she is working to be his strong ally. And if they are exclusively devoted to one another, giving to each other through holistic lovemaking, then the rest of us will benefit from the embodiment of a beautiful picture of Christ and the Church. 

Therefore, in light of this vision of conjugal bliss, I encourage you, dear reader, that when you are with your married friends that you will implore them again and again to “DIE!” “LIVE!” And “BE DRUNK WITH LOVE”!

[1] From “Necessary Ally,” Leslie Anne Bustard, Tiny Thoughts that I’ve Been Thinking: Selected Writings of Leslie Anne Bustard (Square Halo Books, 2024), 51.

[2] For more on the covenantal meaning of sex, access Timothy Keller’s study on “The Gospel and Sex” here: http://static.squarespace.com/static/53189f41e4b0ee73efed7b5a/t/53405ed7e4b02233d743c913/1396727511326/The_Gospel_and_Sex.pdf.

[3] For more, see “Lovemaking,” a chapter in Ned Bustard, Ordinary Saints: Living Everyday Life to the Glory of God (Square Halo Books, 2023), 141-148.

The featured image, “Canterbury Cathedral Crypt,” is courtesy of Steve Moon and is used with his kind permission for Cultivating.

Ned Bustard

Ned Bustard is a graphic designer, children’s book illustrator, author, and printmaker. Some of the books include Bible History ABCs: God’s Story from A to Z, Revealed: A Storybook Bible for Grown-Ups, History of Art: Creation to Contemporary, The O in Hope, Saint Nicholas the Giftgiver, The Light Princess, The Lost Tales of Sir Galahad, and volumes I–III of Every Moment Holy. 

Ned is the creative director for World’s End Images and Square Halo Books, Inc., curates the Square Halo Gallery, is an elder at Wheatland Presbyterian Church, and serves on the boards of both the Association of Scholars of Christianity in the History of Art (ASCHA) and The Row House, Inc.

He has three daughters, two dogs, and an unreasonable amount of books. Ned lives in the West End of Lancaster, Pennsylvania—much too far inland for him to get to go sailing. Learn more at www.WorldsEndImages.com

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