Pulpit Voices: A Wedding Homily

By Wesley D. Tracy

Dr. Tracy is well known to Nazarene preachers. As a professor and as former editor of this publication, he has influenced many of us greatly in our proclamation of the gospel. Here is a creative wedding homily from the pen of one of our best write

On The Hills Where Cinnamon Grows

Introduction

Marriage must be awful! At least that would be the impression you'd get at the bookstore I visited recently. I thumbed through a whole shelf crammed with books on marriage. Divorce Made Easy, Why Men Can't Be Faithful!, Marriage-an Outmoded Idea, Why Marriage Stifles Women, Marriage May Be Hazardous to Your Health, etc.
Suppose a visitor from another planet who knew nothing about human love and marriage browsed that bookshelf. He would think that marriage was an awful plague like diphtheria or AIDS. If someone proposed marriage to him, he would run screaming back to his planet of origin.

It is true, marriage has pain as well as poetry. About half of our marriages fail. Even Christian husbands and wives can be a sore trial to each other.

Marriage does take work, but for all that there is poetry in wedded life. And today I intend to seriously neglect the pain in favor of the poetry.

The Poetry of Marriage in the Bible

The Song of Songs in the Old Testament, some scholars say, is a wedding ceremony with various stanzas to be recited by the Bride, the Groom, and the Guests. We shall listen to selected parts of that ancient ceremony.

The Bride Addresses the Wedding guests:
Night after night...
I have sought my true love;
I have sought him but not found him,
I have called but he has not answered. (3:1*)
While the day is cool and the shadows flee away,
turn, my beloved, and show yourself
a gazelle or a young wild goat
on the hills where cinnamon grows (2:17).
I sought him but did not find him,
I called him but he did not answer.
I charge you, daughters of Jerusalem,
if you find my beloved, will you not tell him that I
am faint with love? (5:8)
The watchmen.. .of the city met me,
and I asked, "Have you seen my true love?"
Scarcely had I left them...
when I met my true love.
I held him and would not let him go
until I had brought him to my mother's house.(3:2-4).
My beloved is fair and radiant,
a paragon among ten thousand.
His head is gold, fine gold...
His lips are lilies and drop liquid myrrh.
His appearance is like Lebanon,
choice as the cedars... Like an apricot tree among the
[common) trees of the wood, so is my beloved
among [young men] (2:3)
He is altogether desirable.
This is my beloved and this is my friend,
O daughters of Jerusalem (5:10,13,16).
The Groom Addresses the Wedding Guests:
There may be sixty princesses...
and young women past counting,
but [for me] there is one alone,
my dove, my perfect one...
Who. . looks.. like the dawn, beautiful as the moon,
bright as the sun, majestic as the starry heavens.
There may be sixty princesses
and young women past counting,
but for me there is one alone!
I did not know myself;
she,- she made me feel more than a prince
reigning over myriads of people (6:8-10,12).
The Groom Extols the Bride Face to Face:
How beautiful you are my dearest, how beautiful!
Your eyes behind your veil are like doves...
Your lips are like a scarlet thread..
your lips drop sweetness like the honeycomb, my bride..
Your [face is] like an orchard of rare fruits:
spikenard and saffron, sweet-cane and cinnamon.
You have stolen my heart,...stolen it, my bride(4:1, 3, 9, 11, 14).
How beautiful are your sandaled feet,...
Your neck is like a tower of ivory,
Your eyes are the pools in Heshbon....
You carry your head like Carmel;
the flowing hair on your head is lustrous . . . .
How entrancing you are, my loved one,
daughter of delights (7:1, 4-6).
The Bride Extols the Groom Face to Face:
My beloved[you are] like a gazelle or a young wild goat
upon the hills where cinnamon grows (8:14).
Your love is more fragrant than wine,
fragrant is the scent of your perfume,
and your name like perfume poured out...
How beautiful you are, 0 my love,
and how pleasant!
I give you my love.
My beloved is mine and I am his
(1: 3,16; 2:16,7:12).
The Vows Exchanged
Love is as strong as death...
Many waters cannot quench love,
no flood can sweep it away;
if a man were to offer for love
the whole wealth of his house,
it would be utterly scorned.
[Therefore]Wear me as a seal upon your heart,
as a seal upon your arm. (8:6-7).

The Exhortations

If I were to behave like a traditional preacher I would find a way to extract from this poem of love and marriage three alliterated points that would sound like a syllogism, a legal brief, or even worse— a federal income tax form. But in such a construct the poetry cannot breath, the rhythm cannot flow and the metaphors cannot dance upon the hills where cinnamon grows.

Instead, I want to lift up four sentences from this poem itself. I hope you will put them on the refrigerator door of your minds, on the mantle of you souls, maybe even post them on the home page or web site of your hearts.
1. I hope that this phrase will always apply to you both: "Your name [is] like perfume poured out”(1:3).

For some couples a name that once was an intoxicating perfume has turned into excruciating pain. Keep the poetry and the perfume.

2. I hope that you will always join the scriptural bridegroom and say: "There may be 60 princesses (or princes) and young women [men] past counting but [for me] there is one alone..."(6:8-9).

On this day you have made your choice. There are hundreds of persons out there who may attract you or be attracted to you, but even if they were princes or princesses and so numerous as to be "past counting" on this day you have made your choice—for you there is "one alone."

3. I hope that you will treasure the statement: "I did not know myself: she [he] made me feel more than a prince [princess]”( 6:12).

What an eloquent way to say that marriage partners are to complement, that is complete each other, not compete with each other. Do not belittle each other, exalt each other. Make him feel like a prince; make her feel like a princess.
4. The fourth phrase that I want to mount in your hall of memories of this day is: "Wear me as a seal upon your heart, as a seal upon your arm"

The heart stands for being; the hand for doing. The interpretation is "Let me be a part of all that you are and all you do.”

In ancient times an artist would actually tattoo a small customized blue seal on the groom's chest and on the bride's arm [we use wedding rings today-but they come off, tattoos don't].

So for the man, every day as he looks in the mirror to shave, or pound his chest like Tarzan,--it's a guy thing--he sees the little blue seal that reminds him of his vows and his bride.

The woman, as she prepares the daily bread or trims her eyebrows--it’s a gal thing--she cannot help but notice the wedding seal upon her arm.

Wear each other "as a seal upon your heart, as a seal upon your arm."

Conclusion

May this poetic wisdom yield warmth at the fireside of life's winters, bring the lamp of joy into the unlit corners of your fright, and be the sunlight that evaporates the fog of doubt. Thus it can help make your marriage more poetry than pain.

A Christian life, a Christian marriage is God's work of art. In Ephesians 2:10 the Bible says that we are "God's workmanship." The Greek word here is poema from which we get our word poem. So the Christian life, the Christian marriage is God's poem, God's masterpiece, His work of art.

Today the God of all grace hands you the pencil and asks you to start writing the poem that is your life together. I said pencil, not pen, pencils have erasers. You won't get it right on the first draft very often. But God is patient with beginning writers. Be patient with each other during erasure times.

Write a couplet, a quatrain, a sonnet, a ballad! May the lines you write have more poetry than pain. May the poem you write together be a dance on "The hills where cinnamon grows."

All Scripture quotations are from the New English Bible.