A holy marriage

“Be holy, for I am holy.”  I Peter 1:16

Andy and I were married forty years ago this next Sunday.  It was such a special day.  I wouldn’t call it perfect, but it was very special.  My brother, Bob, offered to let us take his new Camaro on our honeymoon to the mountains.   Throughout the reception, I kept trying to tell Andy that Bob had hidden his car because he didn’t want shoe polish on it…so we needed to borrow someone else’s car to meet him on the highway.  Somehow, that was never communicated.  So we left the church and I paused at the top of the church steps to throw my bouquet, but Andy didn’t stop.  He was anxious to leave in that hot Camaro.  And since he had my arm, he actually dragged me down the steps!  I had bloody knees in the photos of us in my dad’s car as we were leaving. (My dad finally tossed us his keys while we were standing there looking pathetic with no car to take.)  We were off to a great start!  But you can’t understand the excitement I felt.  I was Mrs. Andy Dietz—about to embark on the greatest adventure of my life.  I was all his and he was all mine.

That’s holiness—being set apart or consecrated for a particular person or service.  I was picked by Andy…set apart to be his wife for a lifetime.  I vowed I would never give myself to another man as long as we both lived.  I was set apart to be Andy’s wife and he was set apart to be my husband.  I was holy, for he was holy.

We sometimes think of holiness as being “holier than thou.”  That’s nothing close to what this means.  It’s loving God so much that we want to be “all His.”  He’s already promised to be “all ours.”  It’s a forever relationship bound by love.  We’re promising to not have an adulterous relationship with the world—we’re going to be holy or set apart for God alone.  Holiness is a beautifully exclusive relationship.