A quarterly magazine for truth, faith, and logic.
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A quarterly magazine for truth, faith, and logic. |
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Vol. 3, Issue 4 | Autumn 2009 |
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The Profound Mysteryby Paul Lytle Marriage sometimes feels like a death of a thousand cuts. Well, let’s be honest. You spend that much time with one person, and the cuts will start adding up. I’ve gotten my share of cuts from the people who sit next to me at work, and I’ve given plenty right back. I’ve heard parents speak this way about their children too, but I can’t speak to that one. Not yet, anyway. Things never start out as big betrayals or giant issues. No, the problems often start with putting the toilet seat up or leaving your socks on the floor. That little annoyance begins to grow in your heart. They add up over time until it really feels like you are in an oppressive relationship. And that’s when the big issues start. When I got married, my wife and I had a lot of conversations about how we wanted this marriage to reflect the love between Jesus and the Church. We read that wonderful passage from Ephesians 5 together again and again with these incredible dreams of what it was going to be like: Wives, submit to your own husbands, as to the Lord. For the husband is the head of the wife even as Christ is the head of the church, his body, and is himself its Savior. Now as the church submits to Christ, so also wives should submit in everything to their husbands. Husbands, love your wives, as Christ loved the church and gave himself up for her, that he might sanctify her, having cleansed her by the washing of water with the word, so that he might present the church to himself in splendor, without spot or wrinkle or any such thing, that she might be holy and without blemish. In the same way husbands should love their wives as their own bodies. He who loves his wife loves himself. For no one ever hated his own flesh, but nourishes and cherishes it, just as Christ does the church, because we are members of his body. “Therefore a man shall leave his father and mother and hold fast to his wife, and the two shall become one flesh.” This mystery is profound, and I am saying that it refers to Christ and the church. However, let each one of you love his wife as himself, and let the wife see that she respects her husband. We wanted it to be a love that people would see and wonder about. I wanted it to be a witness to the world about the love of Jesus. An evidence of the Glory of God captured in a relationship. It hasn’t really turned out like that. Don’t get me wrong. I wouldn’t trade this marriage for the world, and I don’t want to seem like I’m using this article to complain about something. If it hasn’t turned out exactly as I wanted, it still has turned out good. We just celebrated our first anniversary, and I can honestly say this has been a truly amazing year. But there is a difference between a relationship that just radiates the Glory of God in every day and one that still needs a lot of Grace. That “profound mystery” of which the verse speaks sometimes seems a little out of reach. That difference is frustrating. That line between something that is godly and something that needs grace is an impossible one to cross. Relationships have those moments, when your blood is running hot, where you say things you shouldn’t, and you think things you shouldn’t. The other night I had a moment like that, which followed a rather tense week, and I sat in my chair, wondering about how this was supposed to work. The question on my mind and in my prayers was basically this: “How am I supposed to love a woman who doesn’t always deserve that love?” Almost at once, I began to look at this verse in a completely different way. When we had spoken of it before, it was a passage about what we were supposed to do. It was something to strive after, to achieve. My Lutheran friends would call it a Law passage, as opposed to a Gospel passage. Law passages are things you are supposed to do. Gospel passages are the ones that tell you that Jesus already did them on our behalf. I had always read this section as something we needed to accomplish. That our love would be so great that God would shine through. It was always something I was striving for, but never reaching. It’s the problem with all Law passages, because we never achieve them. We can try, but we will fail. The purpose of the Law is not to beat us into conformity, but to expose our sin to us and drive us to Jesus for forgiveness (Romans 7:7). And I knew that. I knew that without the Spirit, we are helpless to be good people. And yet still it felt like we were beating our heads against what we were supposed to be. Here’s the truth of what we are supposed to be. This passage is not about the Law, but about Grace. The relationship between Christ and the Church is not a perfect one, so wonderful and happy that the entire world can’t help but to see God’s Glory shining there. That’s not it at all. The Church started out just like everyone else — in utter and helpless sin. We had rejected God and went about our own selfish, lustful, prideful, and hateful ways. We have deserved nothing of love, of Grace, or mercy. We have deserved nothing but divine punishment for our crimes. What Jesus did for His Church is to die on her behalf, to pay that penalty for her. Though the Church did not deserve that love, He gave it. Though the Church did not deserve that mercy, He gave it. Though the Church deserved nothing of Grace, Jesus gave all of it. The profound mystery of marriage, in reflection of Jesus’ own love for the Church, begins with that question – how can you love someone who doesn’t deserve it? And the answer is Grace. The Glory of God in the Christian marriage begins here. It is forgiving those crimes that the world would never forgive. It is saying, “It’s forgiven” when the world would say, “I want a divorce.” It’s Grace. In the Christian life, it is Grace that conforms us to the image of our Lord and Savior. It is not because of our works that this happens, but by the transforming power of the Spirit. It’s the same way in marriage. Look at the passage again. That love that husbands should have for their wives is the same love that Christ had for the Church – the love that sanctifies her. That love is not expressed in saying, “Try harder! You’re not doing enough!” It’s the love expressed by the words, “It is finished.” It is the love that caused God to send His only begotten Son, that whoever believes in Him will have eternal life. The best part of marriage is the mercy available there. I’m not afraid to tell you that we’ve had fights that would destroy a worldly marriage. But not here. My wife has forgiven me of sins that do not deserve forgiveness, and I’ve forgiven her those same sins. I think that’s a more accurate picture of the love Christ has for the Church than what I originally thought. Before, I thought to be perfect by sheer force of will. But that’s not what the Church is like. The Church is forgiven, and that’s what sets her apart. So if there is something that sets my wife and me apart from the world’s marriage, let it be this. Let them say of us, “I never could have forgiven that! What do they have that we do not?” Forgiveness is a profound mystery, and it is the mystery that is the heart of Christianity.
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