READINGS FROM HOLY SCRIPTURE:
Exodus 33:12-23
Romans 12:6-16
- St. John 2:1-11
Grace to you and peace from God our Father and the Lord Jesus Christ. (Eph 1)
Jesus speaks to you on this day from His Gospel heard today, saying:
“On the third day there was a wedding at Cana in Galilee, and the mother of Jesus was there. Jesus also was invited to the wedding with his disciples.”
As Christ attends a wedding today, He promotes marriage as good and right. Of course this is not the only place in holy Scripture that talks about marriage and since the Bible speaks so much about marriage, the Church has, from the beginning taken this stance:
Marriage is the lifelong union of one man and one woman unto one flesh. Marriage was instituted by God and is entered into by rightful betrothal or engagement.
This is the positive view of marriage. So often today we are only presented with the negative view, especially when confronted with the arguments of homosexuality, divorce, and dysfunction.
Too many times we fall for that trap and lose the argument before we begin. This is because you are trying to prove a negative argument, which can’t be done. The opposing side is trying to remove marriage from the world, at least God’s marriage, and so no amount of arguing is going to win the day.
Instead, argue from the positive. Give the benefits of marriage as proof. Not your private benefits or feelings on the matter, but God’s explicit promises to everyone in His estate of Marriage.
The first stop, of course, is to prove that God institutes and desires marriage for all of us. That can be accomplished with two places in Scripture which say the same thing.
In Genesis 2:18-25, we hear that one of Jesus’s very first things He did with Adam and Eve was get them married. He said, “It is not good for man to be alone…Therefore a man shall leave his father and mother and be joined to his wife, and they shall become one flesh.”
The next place is St. Matthew 19, where Jesus is asked about divorce, the negative, and instead responds in the positive, quoting Genesis 2, which we just heard.
In these two places, of course there are many others, we have established that God creates marriage, calls it very good, and also confirms the truthfulness of the Old Testament for us.
So why does God then forbid any other relationship outside of His, as we just described? Is it because He has anger issues? Is it because He has jealousy issues? Is it because He is so weak that if someone breaks His commands, He loses His power over us?
Repent. We usually fight marriage battles over the idea of “love” and fight an uphill battle in trying to convince someone else who they do or don’t “love”. And then trying to convince them, who already don’t understand love at all, that some dude dying for them 2000 years ago is true love.
Regardless of the fact that true love is more akin to chastity, meaning faithfulness, one thing we never think of when talking about marriage is justice. Justice is a more understood virtue, because everyone understands justice, especially when they have been wronged.
We can speak of Justice when we speak of marriage because justice has to do with playing fair, honesty, give and take, truthfulness, and keeping promises. Yet it is still not enough even when talking about justice to someone, because you are still dealing in relativity. Their justice may not be your justice.
Regardless, this is why, primarily, Marriage is more about God than it is about you. This is why St. Paul specifically makes the point, “This is a great mystery, but I speak concerning Christ and the church” (Eph 5:32), right in the middle of his description of marriage in Ephesians 5.
Not because he doesn’t understand marriage, but because he understands, by the Holy Ghost, that marriage is first and foremost the union of God and man in Christ. Hear and understand: marriage is the marriage of Christ and His Church.
God forbids any other relationship outside of marriage because what is at stake is not our sanity, but His fidelity. This is why God does not leave marriage up to us, but presents us with His idea and gives a full, complete description, leaving no room for discussion.
Marriage lets us know that God is going to play fair with us. In fact, He is going to tip the scales in our favor, in His relationship with us. He is not only going to make us equal to Him, in Christ, but He is going to become the Servant God, offering His life in place of ours.
Marriage lets us know that God is going to be honest with us. He is not going to sugar coat or conceal any of His actions or will for us. How He acts and what He thinks are all going to be on the table. That is, that we are sinners in a sinful world and He is our Savior.
Marriage lets us know that there is going to be a give and take, in our heavenly relationship. Not in the way we think, because God is going to take all and give all. He is going to take all our sin and give all His righteousness and ask for nothing in return, not that we have anything He wants anyway.
Marriage lets us know that God is truthful. He will tell no lies. He will prove to us over and over again that His Word is to be trusted. Not just in performing miracles or giving us nice things, but in laying His honor and Name on the line to manifest His truthfulness among us.
And finally, marriage lets us know that God keeps His promises. He gives Abraham a son, He leads His people to the Promised Land, and He comes in the flesh to proclaim His Gospel and keep His promise to always be with and redeem His people.
This is why God forbids the breaking of the marriage vow, because He is not unfaithful and does not desert. This is why He demands a chaste and decent life, because He is chaste and decent. This is why the husband is the Head of his wife, because Christ is the Head of the Church.
When we choose to get married, we are not creating something new in our lives or in the world. We are being graciously invited into the wonderful estate that God is constantly in. We are being invited to the party of a Good and Gracious Lord Who desires nothing but our good.
So that, when or if we get to that estate, we find a completed project that we are simply participating in, rather than a worldly, ambiguous, and uncertain contract with which we can disregard at any time. people.
It is in Jesus that all marriage holds together and it is on Jesus to make sure marriage continues to hold up. It depends on His faithfulness. When we enter into this by sacred vow in front of His Altar, we are not showing off how wonderful a person we are and are, maybe, going to be. We are begging God for mercy that He let us commune in His Marriage and that He give us the strength to see it through.
Marriage is marriage regardless of what we do with it or what we think about it. We can try to rename it, repackage it, or resell it, but it will always reflect what we think of God and what God thinks about us. When we abuse it, we abuse God. When it is beneficial to us, it is because God made it so.
Thus all Christians enter into this blessed estate when they are joined to Christ in baptism. And because of His faithfulness, not even death will part that marriage of God and man. We must find and seek forgiveness in our marriages, but we are offered everlasting love, light, and salvation in His union with us.
For Jesus’ marriage vows are one-sided. He was the only one cognizant at His wedding. He had to be both the Bridegroom and the Priest. He had to supply the wedding garments and the dowry, for His Bride was sleeping the sleep of death in her sin. He had to give Himself away and traverse the impossible road to hell to search for her, wake her, and adorn her with His righteousness.
In this resurrection, this confession and absolution from sin, we are placed at Christ’s side and He is proud to have us there, for regardless of what our life takes shape as, His Life wins out in the end and today for us. For it is in this Body and Blood that we see the promise of God’s union to us in our hands. In the Holy Supper, we are united, once again, to our Chaste and Just God and Lord, Jesus Christ.
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