Tay Olen and Ma'am Edna's 40th wedding anniversary

Today, we celebrate the 15th wedding anniversary of Joanna and Ronald and equally important the 40th wedding anniversary of Tay Olen and Ma'am Edna.  Number 40 is significant and symbolic for us Christians. In the Bible, 40 represents "change". The Great Flood lasted for 40 days and 40 nights (Genesis 6: 1-19) which destroyed all the wicked and changed them with the generations of the righteous. The Israelites stayed 40 years in the desert (Numbers 14: 34) to change the wicked who died in the desert with the righteous generation. Moses was on Mount Sinai for 40 days  (Exodus 24:18) and Elijah walked 40 days to the mountain of God,  Horeb (1 Kings 19:8) and their lives changed after those days. Even Jesus himself fasted for 40 days and his hidden life was changed into something  public. In everything I just mentioned, the Bible seems to convey that life does not only begin at 40 but at 40, a change to be better must begin.   I do not say that there is something wrong with your relationship Tay Olen and Ma'am Edna that you need to change something in your marital set-up. I do not also say that you have to force each other to change the way you look at each other. Rather, I ask you Tay Olen and Ma'am Edna to think of change as a call of God to level-up, to upgrade, to make your good marriage a better marriage. In a better marriage, your wedding anniversary is not just seen as a social occasion but a holy encounter. As you see each other, you also see yourselves. As you love each other, you will love yourselves. For in you Tay Olen, you will find yourself, Ma'am Edna; for in you Ma'am Edna, you will find yourself Tay Olen. As you demonstrate your love towards each other, you learn that you are both love-able and you experience how to love  more deeply. As you learn to love each other more deeply, you experience to be one in a very special way. This oneness is like the oneness of the Father and his son Jesus; when you love the Father, you love the son too. In other words, to love one is to love the other. In your case, to love Tay Olen is to love Ma'am Edna and vice-versa. The children prove this oneness to be true. If we ask Fiscal Chris, Jhoanna, Loanie and Insoy to choose between their Tatay and Nanay, they choose both. One is not above the other. They love both as one.  Moreover, your wedding anniversary is  a holy encounter because your relationship exists to journey together to God. You discover from your relationship who God is. A line in a song from the play Les Miserables says, "To love another person is to see the face of God." The face of God is the LOVE behind the masks that everybody wears. Ma'am Edna, you did not marry Tay Olen because he is a lawyer. Tay Olen, you did not marry Ma'am Edna because she is a doctor of education. Being a lawyer or being a doctor is your mask and it is not the basis of your marriage. The basis of your marriage is the love you found from each other. Finding love in each other is an experience of God. In fact it is our divine calling. It is the happiness we all seek -to love one another with the love of God. You can sustain your experience of God when both of you surrender yourselves to the holy spirit. You allow him to be in charge of your marriage. The Bible says, "And hope does not disappoint, because the love of God has been poured out in our hearts through the Holy Spirit who was given to us" (Romans 5:5).The holy spirit inspires you to accept each other as who you are. The Holy spirit assists you to seek out each other's innocence and not your faults or failures. The Holy spirit sees you as beautiful creation of God. And so for you Tay Olen and Ma'am Edna, you  see each other as who you really are -a beautiful creation of God. You love what you see in each other. You do not stop loving what you see from each other. This you already have proven to the world today as you celebrate your 40th wedding anniversary. For you, love is eternal. If love is not eternal, it is not love. You are now a living testament, a witness, a sign and not just a symbol of love that is of God. On your 40th wedding anniversary, may you therefore make your good marriage a better marriage. Amen.