Marriage is About Jesus - Ephesians 5:22-33

Every now and then, someone will call and ask if I do weddings. That’s actually an interesting question. A wedding is an event. It can be big or small. It’s usually a special celebration with family and friends, food and beverage, music, laughter and dancing. There are “I do’s” and kisses, enough pictures to make Hollywood jealous, a tossed bouquet, cake that may or may not be smeared across faces, bird seed, and a car decorated in poor taste. Given today’s social and political climate, weddings can be a mixed lot – do not assume it will be one man and one woman, it could be two men, two women, or any combination thereof. Weddings are all about the people.

So, when I am asked, my answer is simple: I don’t do weddings.  I do, however, sanctify the marriage of one man and one woman with the word of God and prayer. 

Marriage.  Marriage is about God and His gifts to a man and a woman. Marriage is an honorable estate of which the Scriptures speak highly, instituted and blessed by God in Paradise before humanity’s fall into sin.  Not simply a man in lonely isolation, but male and female, the Lord God made them in His Image; the woman was taken from the man, then brought to the man and given to him by God, that the two should be united as one flesh.

Marriage is about Jesus. In marriage, we see a picture of the unity, the communion between Christ and His bride, the Church. A profound mystery revealed in Jesus and in His Word, and which St. Paul discloses the mystery to the baptized, so the enlightened can see something in marriage that is deeper than what the unbeliever experiences: the proclamation of the Gospel of Christ.  Therefore, we speak of “Holy Matrimony” and view it as a sign of the Gospel to be received by faith. Anyone can have a wedding. Only Jesus makes a marriage. 

And so we receive the Lord’s Word on marriage in faith, “Wives, submit to your own husbands, as to the Lord.” 

I submit this is one of the most hated verses in the Bible today. We get hung up on the word submit. It sounds so oppressive, so ancient, so unlike our modern sophistication. Conventional wisdom says that these words degrade, put down, and create division. And to an extent it does when working with the world’s definition. 

So in order for us to understand what is being said here–and for us to accept it, gladly and willingly–it’s important to come to the Scripture with the proper attitude. We need to hear it as God’s word, receiving it humbly. And we need to hear these words carefully–not pulling out isolated phrases here and there, out of context. Rather, we need to understand these words according to the sense in which they were written, getting a full and balanced picture of what Paul is saying.

Still, this leaves many uncomfortable.  It is a hard thing to be humble oneself and the world thinks of this as weakness. In our modern culture, submission is viewed not as humble but humiliating, not as honorable but demeaning.  Yet Paul does not suggest or even hint that wives are less valuable or inferior by nature. Paul doesn’t mention judgments about the fitness of a woman or a man. He offers no commentary on the strength or weakness of either sex. Here, Paul does not so much as command the wife to submit as simply describe the way things are for those filled with the Spirit of God.  A wife willingly submits herself to her husband. This isn’t dismissed as “that’s the way it was back then.” This is  patterned on the submission of the Church to Christ: the church received Him as her head (1:21-23), the cornerstone of her foundation (2:20-21); the church receives His gifts (3:17-19) and grows up toward Him as He builds His body (4:15-16). The church lives in His love and forgiveness (4:32-5:2), and sings His praise (5:18-20). Paul’s point of comparison shows the wife’s submission is like this, like the church in relation to Christ – the valuable one for whom the husband gives up everything for her sake.

And just as there is a word to the wives, so there is a word to the husbands. And these two follow one upon the other. So often we focus only on wives submitting, and the discussion stops there. We forget to move on to the balancing word addressed to husbands. In fact, Paul has as much to say or more so about what the husbands are to do as he has about the wives.

“Husbands, love your wives, as Christ loved the church and gave himself up for her.” Here’s where the weight on the shoulders of the husband grows heavier all the way to the point of it being impossible to carry. In verse 28, the obligation is for the husband to love his wife not only for a moment but as a binding and lasting obligation. This means that it is unacceptable for a husband to love to the best of his ability and call it good. Rather, he is to love as Christ loves the church (v. 29). This love Christ has for the church is both a profound mystery and an impossible standard for any husband to meet.

Even the most wonderful husband is an imitator, not Christ himself. As an imitator, the husband is going to fall far short of the standard set by Christ. All husbands will not only fall short here but in every aspect of their lives and must receive forgiveness and be fortified by the means of grace.

Now I ask you, which is harder: the wife submitting to her husband or the husband loving his wife, “as Christ loved the church and gave himself up for her”? Which is harder? Answer: Both are equally hard. Both callings are deadly to the flesh. Both go against our sinful human nature, our old Adam and our old Eve. These words to wives and husbands put to death our pride and our selfishness. Both callings–the wife voluntary submitting to her husband and the husband giving himself up in love for his wife–both are equally hard. But both are equally possible through the mercy and love of God in Christ Jesus.

So husbands, love your wives as Christ has loved the Church. Wives, respect your husband as the Church does to Christ.  A husband is called to be Christ like and a women churchlike, with the marriage being a public testimony of the Gospel – Jesus’ death and resurrection and the wedding of Himself to His people through Word and Sacrament.  People of God, you are the bride of Christ, His holy Church, called to be holy, forgiven, chaste, pure, faithful bride to the living Savior, Jesus.

This is the profound mystery of which St. Paul speaks. In this union of husband and wife the love of God is revealed in the Word. The very Word of God has Himself become flesh in order to become one flesh with us His Holy Bride, the Church. This is the purpose for which God created anything at all and everything that is. This is THE marriage that every other marriage signifies, and which every other marriage is called to celebrate and participate in.  This is why marriage is so important: it’s all about Jesus!

It is about what Jesus does to a man and a woman, joining them together into a one flesh union. It is about Jesus who submits to the Father’s will, going to the cross to die.  It is about Jesus, the head of the church, and the submission the Church gives to her Lord.  It is about Jesus, who loves the Church, who gave His life for her, presenting her to Himself in splendor, without spot or wrinkle or any such thing, that she might be holy and without blemish. It is and always has been about Jesus leaving the Father and holding fast to His bride, the Church, uniting His people to Himself.  Paul does not say that the relationship of Christ to the church is like marriage, rather God had Christ first in mind and then instituted marriage to reflect what He would ultimately do.  In other words, earthly marriage reflects Christ and the church, not the other way around.  In the one flesh union, God unites a husband and wife.  God’s definition of marriage is one man, one women, as a reflection of the One Groom, Christ, and the one bride, the Church.

Any other definition, or a definition divorced from Jesus, is apart from God’s will and created intention. That means that homosexuality is a sin. We know that – it’s part of the reason Zion left the ELCA eleven years ago. But, we have bought into conventional wisdom and forget that sex outside of marriage is also a sin.  Pornography is sin.  Living together outside of marriage is a sin.  That lust for another whom God has not joined together in the one flesh union of Holy Matrimony is sin. Condoning the sinful actions of others is sin.

These are sinful not just because they go against God’s plan for His creation, but because of what they say about Jesus and His marriage to the Church.  This is the key.  This is why the sinful world doesn’t get what the fuss is all about-it doesn’t know Jesus.  Marriage is a mystery revealed only in Jesus.  In the attempt by our world to redefine and reject Biblical marriage, the issue then is really a rejection of Christ.  To try to redefine marriage or simply put it aside as inconvenient or unwanted is put oneself in the place of Christ, to upset not just the order of creation but also the order of salvation.  Because marriage is all about Jesus!

There is no more mystery here for you, the baptized.  Our relationships reflect God’s relationship to us.  God’s Church is the bride of Christ. Marriage may be all messed up in our society, but it need not be so among us. For we know the love of Christ, our Savior: His forgiveness that cleanses us from our sins, and His baptismal grace which sustains us through this life, and His wedded love as our Groom. Amen.