[AI translation] Dear Brothers and Sisters! In this happy and solemn moment of your departure, may the Word of God address you, and the word of Jesus, which we read in John 20:29: "Blessed are those who do not see and believe."Dear Brothers and Sisters! Every human being desires happiness, and yet so few people can be said to be truly happy. All men, without exception, seek happiness, and yet there are so few who have truly found it. Every marriage, almost without exception - if it is a true marriage - starts out with the desire for happiness, and yet so few arrive at that haven.
Now, then, Jesus tells us in this verse that we are reading something very simple about the secret of happiness. Behold, he says that happy are those who do not see and believe. Happy! Of course, this does not mean what the world means. It does not mean that they are fortunate, it does not mean that everything turns out as they had planned for themselves. They are not happy in the sense that, at the end of the novel, the lovers finally meet, become each other's, and now happiness is complete. It's not that kind of happy-ending happiness. I would say they are not happy on the outside, but happy on the inside. It's a certain inner order-ness that is happiness. Before Jesus takes a human soul to heaven, he always first takes heaven into that person's soul. This is the happiness we are talking about here. Something from heaven, something of the splendour, beauty, grandeur, joy of heaven. Something of the happiness of God. It is the only basis of all other happiness. Yours too. And who are the happy ones? The Word says: those who do not see and believe. Those who believe. Not believing in something, of course, because all men in this world without exception believe in something, but believing in the living, personal power of God, in the person of the living God. As He has revealed Himself to us in Jesus Christ.
And we, brothers and sisters, confess this: we are not afraid to believe in someone we cannot see. In an age when everything is weighed, calculated, taken apart and put together, people tend to take as reality only that which can be calculated, taken apart, put together and weighed. Well, you can't do that with God. Nor can you do it with the human soul. But if one were to try, one comes to the place where the astronomer once proclaimed: 'I have searched the universe with my telescope, but I have found God nowhere in it. Or, like the scientist who also proclaimed so loudly: I have dissected the whole human body, but I have found no soul. For neither could a mother's love be found in this way in the heart of a dissected human being. And yet, the greatest reality of our life is precisely maternal love. And the joy of Beethoven's Symphony No. IX could not be measured or calculated, yet it is in every note of that symphony. Blessed are they who see not and believe. By seeing we can only attain to superficial, external knowledge anyway. Pilate, for example, saw Jesus with his own two eyes and yet did not really know him. The Roman soldiers grabbed Jesus with their two rough hands, Jesus was there between them, between their hands, and yet they did not really know Him. And the Apostle Paul, or Francis of Assisi, or Gabor Bethlen never saw Jesus as many others did, and yet they really knew Him. So let no one think that faith is an inferior function to sight. Let no one fear that he is doing a martial thing, or that he is acting anti-scientifically, if he believes in someone he cannot see. Faith is more than seeing. Direct vision is faith. It is grasping the essence. That is why Jesus says that happy are those who do not see and believe. Through our faith, for us, God is a living reality. We believe in the God who has revealed himself in Jesus Christ. Through whom we can have forgiveness of sins and eternal life. The two greatest gifts of all. We joyfully confess that in Jesus, Jesus of Nazareth, the mighty God has become our friend, our brother. Let me tell you that the older I get - and there are many of us here - the more I realize that without this faith, not only is it not possible, but it would not be worth living. That is why, because we believe in God, we also believe that God has given you to each other. For you have not only chosen each other, but, according to our faith, God has chosen you for each other. The marriage of two people of faith is truly sealed when they recognize in faith and commit themselves day by day, again and again, that they are made for each other by the will of God. The deepest foundation of your marriage is not that you have come to know each other, not that you have come to love each other, but that God has predestined you to each other from eternity.
He who believes can always look forward with hope, forward to tomorrow. For he knows that we are never going out of life, but always going more inwards into life. And no matter how much of life on earth we have lived, real life is still ahead of us. And when there is no hope for the unbelieving man, when unbelieving science and power and might can only say, "Man, give up all hope here - at death -" that is where hope really unfolds for us in all its glory and richness. For even through death we hope for resurrection and eternal life.
And finally, he who believes can truly love. God and love go hand in hand. God is the eternal source of love. And we can draw from this source, through our faith, the love that makes us truly happy because it never runs out. Oh, how right Jesus is when he says that happy are those who do not see and believe. Will mankind be happier when they no longer believe in anyone at all? Hardly, brothers and sisters. I have never heard a believer say, but I would like to be an unbeliever, but I have heard an unbeliever say many times, but I would like to believe. But I would like to believe as believers believe. Well, yes, happy are those who cannot see and believe. And we wish this happiness for you, and God is preparing this happiness for you.
Amen.
And we, who have witnessed the wedding of this newly married couple, lift up our prayer of supplication and thanksgiving, and pray in this way:
Gracious God, our Father, we thank you for this solemn moment when all those who love one another can be together. We believe, Lord, that we are now in the presence of our 94-year-old great-grandmother, who is with us in thought from afar. With her, we bless You, we thank You for this day, this hour, this moment when Your children are setting off towards a happy, unknown future. We thank You, Lord, especially for connecting their hearts to Yourself. And that they could meet before You, that in You they could truly know each other, and so through You they could come to love each other. We thank Thee for the realisation which they thus assume in faith, that Thou hast destined them for one another. That this marriage also started from Your thought.
We ask our Lord God that they may be more and more convinced of this every day during their future married life. We thank You that we can believe in You, invisibly believe in You. And we thank You, Lord, that through our faith You are the ultimate reality of our lives. The true reality on Whom all else depends and on Whom we can always rely.
So we entrust to You the life and happiness of this young couple. You keep them Lord for each other, You sanctify their feelings. In their body and soul, You are their guardian. You, Lord, bless them again and again each day. And from Thy hand let them always receive what Thy wisdom and Thy love have prepared for them. O blessed be Thou, most majestic God, that thus two souls may set out with Thee on the course of a new life. To the fight of a new life.
Grant that their trust in Thee may always increase. Grant that their love for one another may never truly wane, for they may draw from the eternal fountain which You have raised up there on Calvary in Jesus Christ. So guide them every day of their lives. All the way to eternity, so that at the very end of their earthly journey, Lord, they may go on their way to eternity, happy and obedient to your call.
Hear us, we pray, for the merit of Jesus Christ!
Amen
Date: 30 June 1962 (Evangelism at a wedding)