What do you say to a couple who have been together for 60 years –
"60 years, and you still haven't run out of things to argue about. You legends!"
""Sixty years, and you still haven't killed each other. Impressive!"
"Sixty years: Your love is unbreakable—just like your selective hearing."
"60 years of marriage? You deserve a statue, a parade, and matching recliners.
More seriously, in marriage you are there to support and cherish one another and that two have become one. So Andrea and Robbie, married in this church 60 years ago on the 30 April we celebrate with you today.
I like what one young husband whose wedding I conducted said about his new wife at the reception. He said:
“I asked her to marry me, not because I have found someone I can live with - but because I have found someone I cannot live without”
Some people have some very strange ideas about what marriage is all about.
Take Elizabeth Taylor – who after seven marriages and five divorces - said this:
“I think it’s fairly obvious why I was married. As strange as it may sound, I am a very moral woman. I was taught by my parents that if you fall in love, if you want to have a love affair, you get married. I guess I’m very old-fashioned.”
And some have even stranger ideas about what makes a good partner!
Take Agatha Christie, the famous novelist who once said: “ An archaeologist is the best husband a woman can have; the older she gets, the more interested he is in her.” She should know – she was married to one!
What is wonderful is that for Andrea and Robbie their marriage vows have meant a lot to them as 60 years have passed.
They have been through thick and thin together – working together to build a good life together and create a loving family.
The Scripture says: “Two are better than one because they gain a good reward in their toil. For if one will fall, the other will lift his companion but woe to the one alone who falls when there is no other to lift him up! So if two lie together, they keep warm, but how can one alone keep warm. Although one may prevail against him who is alone yet two will hold out against him, a threefold cord is not easily broken. That’s Ecclesiastes.
Then what about Diamonds on a Diamond Anniversary? They say diamonds are forever. I bet you are singing it in your head with your very best Shirley Bassey impression…
Diamonds are indeed one of the hardest, most enduring substances on earth, (although whether they will actually last forever, only God knows).
They are not only highly valued as gemstones, with their clarity, cut and brilliant ability to scatter light, they are also used as cutting tools in a great number of industries. In fact the vast majority of diamonds mined today are used this way.
To reach a 60th wedding anniversary is a wonderful achievement, especially in today’s world. Like a diamond, a long lasting marriage is a rare and beautiful thing. That diamonds are also symbols of endurance and resilience is also apt. Marriage needs those too?
Andrea and Robbie’s marriage has been an amazing example of love, faithfulness and devotion. Towards each other, to their ever growing family, to their friends, to those in need – and most importantly, to God. Their marriage has lasted because God brought them together and God has kept them together. And those of us here this morning are extremely grateful for that.
I read somewhere that diamonds are ‘symbols of purity, unity, love, wealth and abundance’. How fitting then to be used in reference to a long lasting marriage - both are priceless gems that have stood the test of time. The world has changed a lot since 1966.
1966 in the UK was defined by cultural highs and tragic lows: England won the FIFA World Cup, "Swinging London" was at its zenith, and The Beatles made headlines, but the nation was devastated by the October 21st Aberfan disaster, which killed 144 people in South Wales. Politically, Harold Wilson’s Labour Party secured a landslide, and the nation began preparing for decimalization. But love is love whatever the year.
For the purpose of this sermon I researched if diamonds were mentioned in the Bible and found, interestingly, that there is some division of opinion. Different words have been translated as ‘diamond’ in different translations.
Some commentators believe the sea of crystal glass that John described seeing before the Throne of God in Revelation was actually made of diamonds. If so – diamonds will be forever, I suppose!
I think the most important thing is to recognise that for anything to have true lasting worth it has to be given over to God. God can take a marriage full of human frailty and make it into a monument to His goodness and faithfulness. The true worth of a diamond only comes in it’s cutting and shaping. God can take any one of us – like uncut pieces of rock mined from the earth – and through His work in us, cutting, shaping, forming, polishing – make our lives into something pure, valuable and beautiful. And our lives, formed and shaped by Him, will indeed last forever, to shine and reflect His glory for eternity.
But sometimes we need a warning because it can go wrong.
Jesus has ushered in the kingdom of God, and it is up to us to listen and watch for the Spirit to speak and move among us, leading us to receive what God has done in Jesus and continue to build the body of Christ.
Go back to Acts and read the story of Stephen’s martyrdom. The people hurling those stones weren’t strangers or foreigners or a band of terrorists; no, they were upstanding citizens—the kind of people who, had they lived today, said their prayers every day and went to church. But they in public didn’t live up to the calling Christ commands because it is too radical.
When we stop listening to one another; when we stop listening for the Spirit; when our concern is focused on the preservation of the self, rather than the flourishing of all, our own faith becomes impoverished, and the Gospel is polluted and lessened.
Jesus has called us to build his kingdom and he has entrusted us with all the tools we need to do it. In the end, one response requires us to live our life so that we may participate in God’s resurrected life…
…And the other? It will quite literally kill us.
Andrea and Robbie as you absorb and reflect the light of Christ, you will find that your destiny together will participate in the very glory of God in the world. And you will look a lot like the new Kingdom as described in Revelation 21:11, “…
And the holy city, coming down out of heaven from God. It had all the glory of God, and glittered like some precious jewel of crystal clear diamond.”Your marriage can be a part of that sparkling kingdom. Maya Angelou writes beautifully about love in her book, I Know Why the Caged Bird Sings. She said that to really love someone is to know the song their heart sings and to hum it back to them on the days they forget how it goes.
Perhaps when we know that we are loved by God in the fullness of God’s knowledge of us we are free to live in this love.
TFree to transmit the love of Christ in a hurting world. Free to see ourselves and others as God sees us. Because loved people love people. How radical, to see each person, as God sees them. .
A naughty vicar in marriage preparation classes said this once “Grooms, once you get married remember that when you have a discussion with your future wife, always get the last two words in…Yes, dear.”
And Prince Philip speaking on his Diamond Wedding in 2007 said this "I think the main lesson we have learned is that tolerance is the one essential ingredient in any happy marriage... You can take it from me that the Queen has the quality of tolerance in abundance."
And a couple celebrating their Diamond Wedding laughed together “60 years of annoying the same person, who’d have thought it?”
Andrea and Robbie, your love for each other is clear and is an inspiration. Thank you for letting us share your celebration today. 60 years is a diamond legacy, rare, precious and enduring. May your example inspire us all. In Jesus name who shows us in his life what love is and invites us all to live in his way. Amen.
