A State of Grace

The Engagement of Ariel and Andrew

 Good evening to each of you our dear friends and family.  Thank you so much for joining us in this joyous celebration of both the love of Ariel for Andrew and Andrew for Ariel, which so beautifully demonstrates the love of Christ for us His bride, a love so over the top that He sacrificed himself for us even while we were still very far away from Him.  I also want to thank each of you for the Godly influence that you have been to either Ariel or Andrew, or if you are so fortunate, to the both of them.  It does seem that God has chosen "community" to be a very significant influence for the sake of the gospel in the lives of His people, and I love how each of you have helped mold both of them into such wonderful portraits of their Savior.

It wasn't even a year ago when I was last standing here in front of many of you after having given away my second daughter, Alli, in marriage to Chris, my second son-in-law.  And now here we are again.  I have been asked not just a few times to expound on the myriad effects of having now hosted three weddings in the span of just of just three and a half years.  All I could think to say was, "we have got to stop taking all of you out to dinner like this!"  Okay ... not really ... well, on second thought ... at least maybe!  I will admit that it seems to get a bit easier each time.

The Leaves Are ON This Tree ... Lychgate Park, site of the proposal

What God has shown me over the ensuing twelve months since Alli's and Chris' wedding is that while my life and ministry may have already passed it's zenith, those of my kids are just beginning to hit their strides ... and that is actually a gracing to me as well as to Janna.  We, of all parents, have been both incredibly fortunate and blessed by the paths our kids have chosen for their lives and by the life mates each of our girls have chosen, or perhaps more accurately stated, been graced with by God.  And did I mention grandbabies!?!  WOW!!!  So many of you had raved about what an incredible blessing becoming grandparents would be ... and though I didn't really doubt it as your testimonies were so incontrovertible in both number and power ... I just couldn't really conceive it, as I was just too overly focused on the undeniable reality of aging that it accurately reflected, and just could not see how that could be so easily overwhelmed by it's sheer joy, legacy and even eternal magnitude.  But, of course, you my friends were so incredibly right about that.  And thankfully, we are only just getting started in that regard.

Surprised by his love

Which brings me to the story of Ariel and Andrew.  Did I mention that Andrew had the audacity to ask me to breakfast the day after Alli's and Chris' wedding last July to request her hand in marriage?  Talk about hitting a guy when he's down!  Anyway, I digress.

My pondering over Ariel and Andrew centers on the question as to whether there has ever been a couple so mild mannered ... dare I say meek, and yet who were so filled with zeal for both Christ and his kingdom?  For Ariel it has pretty much just always been who she was.  Erik and Karen might say the same about Andrew.  My earliest memories of Ariel are as a bespectacled, freckle-faced girl with two piggly tails in her hair, who was a happy-go-lucky girl who very much loved being with her daddy ... no matter what I happened to be doing at the time ... but she also was one who very much looked forward to and loved sharing Saturday morning breakfasts with dad or any such outing back in our Aloha days.  She also

My freckly-faced happy-go-lucky girl turns 7 years old!

has always had the incredible gift of being completely content being with whatever friend she happened to be with at the time.  And that child would feel that satisfaction from Ariel that there was literally no one else on the planet that she would rather be with at the time.  That gifting has carried forward twenty years and she still has it.  It's no wonder that Ariel has always had such an incredibly large cadre of friends.  She has literally lived out the old proverb "if you want a friend, be a friend."  It just comes naturally to her.

My piggly-tailed girls ... Ariel so just wanted to be one of the sisters!

First Hawaiian Christmas!

And on top of that she has always had a Godward heart from the earliest of years.  In fact, I can't really remember when her heart wasn't focused on God and pleasing Him.  It certainly helps that she has always had such great examples in both her sisters and her mother to follow.  And speaking of her sisters, more than either of the other two, Ariel has just loved and cherished being counted as "one of the sisters" as if there were no higher honor in life.  And she would be equally disappointed to ever be excluded from what she considered a sister activity if one was happening.  But more than her sisters, she has always seemed to have an overly keen sensitivity to issues of social justice, from her advocacy against the children soldiers of Joseph Kony in Uganda raising both awareness of the problem and finances to fight it during her high school days at Chiles to her involvement with the Passion movement more recently to end the sex trafficking of children and young women ... the slavery of our time.

I can also remember buying several pairs
of very overpriced, shoddy Toms shoes
during her high school and early college days so that both Ariel AND some underprivileged African village child could wear them.  It seems that Ariel has just always been drawn to the cause of the orphan and the defenseless.  I also recall that the same has been said of our God.

Then came her Florida State University days ... she wasn't there a week when she showed up that next Sunday morning at

My Baby Love

Four Oaks Church with an entourage of fellow freshman kids that filled an entire row in our church sanctuary!  And these are long rows mind you!  The next year she followed it up by filling two entire rows!  Which she also did the first Sunday of her junior and senior years as well.  This is a microcosm of her life ... a life she lives for God's glory and renown ... it's just who she is.  It would figure that she'd meet the love of her life on the mission field.  Yes, she met Andrew in Miami Beach on a CRU Summer Project.  You see, the gospel is also the passion of Andrew's life.  So it was just one of those things that had to be.  They again spent last summer on mission literally behind enemy lines on the college campuses of Paris, France as Christ's ambassadors.  Talk about an overwhelming challenge!  And yet God graced them with a few souls, I recall one in particular ... a Japanese national girl named Yukiyo on a French campus whom Ariel met with many times and who gave her life to Jesus during Ariel's last week in Paris.  And on top of that both she and Andrew had many opportunities to literally sow seeds of life into the souls of hundreds of young adults.

And I also recall Jennifer's story ... a young girl who

Spectacles!

could not seemingly escape the FSU CRU team on campus ... it seems that everywhere she turned during her four years at FSU, there would be another girl from CRU, be it Adrienne Butz at the beginning and often during her freshman year and that was "coincidentally" coupled with seemingly tag team run-ins with another female CRU leader, Katie Perdue.   Then during her sophomore year it was Kimberly Chin who seemingly was always crossing her path and just when she thought she was safely hidden away in the College of Nursing during her junior and senior years she ran into that dynamo known as Ariel.  After about 15 months of questioning Ariel, Jennifer finally realized that her condition was hopeless, God had her totally surrounded and there really was no running from the Holy Spirit.  Ultimately, she committed her life to Christ last fall.  And she, Kimberly, and Adrienne are all with us tonight witnessing this union.

These are likely just small previews of the life God is calling them to.  To know Andrew is to know what Ariel sees in him.  He and Ariel are so much alike in the things that bring out their passions.  They are both people people, relationship focused and gospel centered.  Andrew is so much so that he started a Destino ministry at UF last year ... for those who don't know ... Destino is the division of CRU that focuses on the Hispanic community.  I don't believe a chapter had ever graced the UF campus until last fall ... but there is one there now and from afar [at least this far away] it seems to have been pretty successful with a growing attendance week after week and month after month and testimonies of lives changed and touched by the power of Christ's gospel.

Ariel [and I still think my daughter Ashley] were both born to be pastors' wives.  It is just in their nature.  Are you listening Matt????  And now after hearing Chris speak last night, I am not so sure all my daughters won’t end up being pastors’ wives.  So to marry a guy who's heart is set on becoming both a pastor and a church planter ... especially one who hopes to take the good news to a people group that has never heard it... is all the more appealing to Ariel.  Even though it makes her dad's heart sink a bit to think that his "Baby Love" and her babies could easily end up on the other side of the world from where we are standing now ... you know the upside down side.  To that Ariel just says, "pack your bags and come

join us!"

The Proposal

As I pondered the Scriptures in preparation for writing this toast I considered the question of what verse or biblical attribute do both Ariel and Andrew most bring to my mind?  I made it no further than Jesus' third beatitude:

"Blessed are the meek, for they will inherit the earth." Matthew 5:5

Consider with me this picture:
It was nearly 2,000 years ago when two men faced each other on the pavement before the governor's palace. One was Jesus Christ, the meekest man who had ever lived. The other was Pontius Pilate, a man of extraordinary pride. Jesus appeared as the epitome of weakness, a poor Jew caught in the inexorable tides of Roman history, frail and impotent, a man destined to soon be extirpated from the face of the earth. Pilate, on the other hand, was the very personification of Roman power. The tides of history were on his side, and as a part of Rome, he was an heir to all of the known world.

The two figures are actually on opposite ends of a tragic paradox. Jesus Christ, the prisoner, was the free man. He was in absolute control.  Jesus, the meek, would inherit not only the earth but the entire universe. Whereas, Pilate, the governor, was the prisoner of his own pride and sin. He could not control even his own soul, and as such, he ultimately had no inheritance.

Jesus not only taught the paradox "Blessed are the meek, for they will inherit the earth" -- He actually lived it. He, in fact, was the master of the paradox. His teaching was typically salted with shining contrasts like: "the Last shall be first; Giving is receiving; Dying is living; Losing is finding; Least is greatest; Poor is rich; Weakness is strength; Serving is ruling." For Christ, paradoxes were an especially effective way of enabling people to see essential spiritual truths.

The beauty of a paradox is that it grabs our attention because it falls on our ears with an elevating dissonance. In the case of Matthew 5:5, it would seem far truer to say "Blessed are the proud, the strong, the intimidating, for they will inherit the earth." But Jesus is teaching survival not of the fittest but of the meekest! And immediately we wonder, "how in the world are the meek going to inherit anything?" Does Jesus not know that life does not work that way? Just look at those who occupy the White House, the Capitol, the executive suites of Wall Street or Fifth Avenue -- the strong, the self-sufficient, the overbearing, the more than capable, the aggressive, the ambitious. The world seemingly belongs to such as those. So it would seem that the last thing the average man would want to be known for is meekness. It would seem that Jesus has made a great mistake, but of course, He hasn't. Indeed, the third Beatitude provides an infallible law of life and a remarkable power for living and dying.

So to begin, what does "Blessed are the meek" mean? Or more specifically, what does the word "meek" -- or as many translations render it, "gentle" -- mean? It may be helpful to begin with what it does NOT mean. Understand first that meekness is not weakness. It does not denote cowardice or spinelessness or timidity or a willingness to have peace at any cost. Neither does it suggest indecisiveness, wishy-washiness, or a lack of confidence. Meekness does not imply shyness or a withdrawn personality. And it cannot be reduced down to mere niceness.

First look at the ring!

In classical Greek, the word was used to describe tame animals, soothing medicine, a mild word and a gentle breeze. William Barclay described it as a word "with a caress in it." Meekness/gentleness also implies self-control. So much so that Barclay went on to describe it as literally "strength under control." The meek person is strong! He is gentle, meek, and mild; but he is in control and he is as strong as steel.

Jesus said of Himself, "I am gentle and humble in heart" [Matthew 11:29]. As the incarnation of meekness, He displayed it in two distinct ways, both of which showed His power. In respect to His own person, He practiced neither retaliation nor vindictiveness. When He was mocked and spat upon, He answered nothing, for He trusted His Father. When confronted by Pilate, He kept silent. When His friends betrayed Him and fled, He uttered no reproach. When Peter denied Him, Jesus restored him to both fellowship and service. When Judas came and kissed him in Gethsemane, Jesus called him "friend." And Jesus meant it. He was never insincere. Even in the throes of death, He pleaded, "Father, forgive them, for they do not know what they are doing" [Luke 23:34]. Yet in all of this, Jesus, meek and mild, was in control. He radiated power.

On the other hand, when it came to matters of faith and the welfare of others, Jesus was a lion. He rebuked the Pharisees' hardness of heart when He healed the man's withered hand on the Sabbath [Matthew 12:9-45]. He was angered when His disciples tried to prevent little children from coming to Him [Mark 10:13-16]. He made a whip and drove the moneychangers from the Temple [John 2:14-17]. He called Peter "Satan" after the outspoken fisherman tried to deter Him from His heavenly mission [Matthew 16: 21-23]. All of this came from the very same Jesus, the incarnation of gentleness.

To put it all together is to paint an amazing picture and one that is so clearly seen in both the lives and ministries of Ariel and Andrew.  The one who is meek has a gentle spirit because he trusts God. Indeed, there is even a caress about his or her presence. At the same time, the meek person possesses immense strength and self-control, which he or she exhibits in extending love rather than retaliation against those who do him or her evil. But he stands up fearlessly in defense of others or of the truth as the occasion demands.

The reward for meekness is nothing short of amazing: "They will inherit the earth."

And Ariel ... you and Andrew and perhaps even your children and your children's children may receive a generational blessing from your faithfulness in this.  And in that, your mother and I are very well pleased ... as is your Heavenly Father.  And it is in this ... my finally realized state of grace ... that I marvel at all that God has done first in your lives, then in our lives and lastly in the lives of all of you gathered here to celebrate this occasion.  It is truly a glorious tapestry that He weaves! To Ariel and Andrew I raise my glass!  Cheers!  Congratulations!  All of God's manifold blessings to you both and to all the Axsoms that may follow!  Amen!

So much love!