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Are you ready to curl up
with a cup of tea? We have a great mystery to solve here! Marriage is
indeed mysterious, and I’m afraid very few of us take the time to
untangle it. When we last sat down together, we looked at all the reasons
marriage falls apart. That was rather easy, for most of us
"marrieds" have experienced or witnessed all of them. Now we
come to this familiar passage, and most of us want to scratch our heads
and file it under the category of God’s thoughts and ways being high and
far beyond our puny understanding. Whatever does it mean?
I’m going to pause here
for an aside to those readers who are single or single again. The rest of
this Tea Time will be a discussion for those people who have human
spouses. You, dear ones, have a divine one: Jesus! You escape all the
pitfalls and foibles that accompany human marriage, yet still can know the
true and full meaning of Holy Matrimony. The Apostle Paul addresses the
issue of marriage from both the married and the single perspective at
great length in I Corinthians 7. Many scholars believe that Paul himself
was single again.
Before we dig into the
particulars of Ephesians 5:22-33, let’s step back to see the big
picture. Does is strike you that it does not address all the
"practical issues" that were raised in our look at Genesis 3? In
fact, at first glance, it appears rather esoteric. It appears to speak
more of Jesus Christ than it does husband and wife. Ahah!!! That is
exactly the point the Lord is making here! He intends for marriage
to teach us what Jesus’ love is and to learn to demonstrate it to just
one person. We, however, intend marriage to be the way we receive
love, companionship, fulfillment and pleasure without involving Jesus at
all. The first clue to unraveling our mystery is that most of us enter
marriage clueless! No, worse than that, we enter it under very false
suppositions and expectations, and that is trouble with a capital T.
If we look at the roles of
both husband and wife in this passage, we see that marriage is not at all
about receiving; it’s about giving. Look closer, and we see that it’s
not about giving in the human ways, but in the divine, as Jesus gave of
Himself to us.
Because God is the
consummate Gentleman, He speaks to the ladies first. Mincing no words He
goes right to those two issues that raise the dander of modern woman:
submission and headship. Now there are two words which have been distorted
and perverted from their Biblical meaning! They have absolutely nothing to
do with value. They have everything to do with order. Order necessitates
differing degrees of responsibility. All of Scripture, beginning with
Genesis 2, makes it clear that God has placed man in role of greater
responsibility, and thus accountability, than woman. That being the case,
it is only reasonable that we women place ourselves (it is a decision of
the will!) under the authority of our husband, who must answer to the
Almighty Manager and Supervisor for what he does with his God-given authority.
When we choose to stay within the boundaries of God’s plan, we have
every right to expect that He will protect, provide for and vindicate us.
When we step out of that realm, we’re on our own.
I’m here to tell you, I’ve
tried both, submitting and usurping, and have found this to be universally
true: taking over never works with either my husband or with God.
When I don’t understand or agree with what my beloved is thinking or
doing, the Lord wants me, in faith and trust in Him, to #1 pray for
wisdom and help; #2 respectfully voice my questions; #3 let
whatever happens be between Him and my husband. It’s amazing how often
my way was not best! And in those times when hard lessons have to be
learned, God faithfully teaches both of us. Life is a hard road to travel.
There are the "worse," the "poorer," and the
"sickness" times, as our marriage vows promised. In doing my
part, as in submitting to order with respect, I can significantly shorten
them.
Now, ladies, if we think
our job is tough, let’s look at what the Lord requires of husbands. A
man is to love his wife like Jesus loves His beloved church, the lamb of
His fold, the gift of His Father to Him. He is to love her more than his
own life, being willing to lay down his life to self for her. He is to
provide a milieu where she can see and experience the values of God, where
the Word of God is believed and lived out in such a way that her own faith
thrives and grows. He is to love her is such a way that she is never
threatened by the legacy, for ill or for good, that his parents have given
him. He is to love her as if she were an integral part of himself, because
she is. Therefore a man shall leave his father and mother and be
joined to his wife, and they shall become one flesh. Genesis
2:24 Man is called to the role of headship because he is to imitate and
demonstrate the mind and heart of Christ in devotion, sacrifice, example
and priority, regardless of his wife’s condition or reaction (in case
she forgets the respect and submission part).
The principles for the
roles of woman and man within marriage are this: The wife is to love her
husband as she loves Jesus. The husband is to love his wife as Jesus loves
him. Precious one, I don’t think it gets much more practical than that!
If married people treated each other in this manner, no one would ever
leave a marriage. People leave marriages because deep within them, they
long for this kind of relationship, and when they are disappointed and
wounded enough, they move on. Jesus as our Role Model will never exercise
that option. He is in His relationship with his beloved ones for the
duration, for better or worse in their character, for richer or poorer in
their faith, in sickness and in health in their commitment. He commands, Love
one another as I have loved you. John 15:12 The third and
foundational principle for marriage is that in order to love each other,
we must first know how much Jesus loves us. If we don’t know that, then
He has written an entire book of love letters to us to tell us. We need to
read it. It’s called the Bible. Only in knowing His love can we truly
love.
If you think this is a tall
order, you’re wrong! It’s an impossible order. Not one of us is
capable of loving like this. But every one of us is capable of being a
vessel through which Jesus can continually pour His love into us till it
overflows unto our spouses. That’s the washing of the water of the Word.
And when we are loved to overflowing, we will glow and effervesce in love,
a most attractive quality! Marriage is to be the garden of life, the
fertile soil of hearts and minds, free of rocks of selfishness and weeds of
lies. That is what Ephesians 5 is saying will happen when wives willingly
submit to and demonstrate respect for their husbands, and when husbands
provide the safety and security of unconditional love to their wives. The
garden of our lives is then ripe for the love of Christ to take deep root
and grow. And that is exactly why He instituted marriage as the first
human relationship! Marriage is all about the love of Jesus, first to
ourselves (Jerusalem), then to our spouses (Judea) and finally to the rest
of the world (the uttermost parts). And we can live this out because, lo,
He is with us and in us always and forever and will never leave or forsake
us. He will give us the will and the power to love our spouses. Only one
question remains: will we let Him? Glory awaits all who do. Fear
remains in all who do not. This is as practical as life in Christ gets!
Please, please pray with me for Godly marriages. Simple Truth shines light
on all mystery. Mountains are moved with a mustard seed of faith.
In His fathomless love,
Sue |
