Marriage is About....

In Mark 10: 5-9 Jesus is asked about divorce. He acknowledges that Moses had allowed divorce because of the hardness of people’s hearts, but then he quickly goes on to tells us that …from the beginning of creation, God made them male and female. Immediately, we can see that his view of Marriage is based in Revelation, that is, What God says. Jesus affirms the existence of God as Creator and that God had plans and purposes for marriage that He reveals to us in the Creation Order generally and specifically in the Bible.

Jesus does not debate about the revealed purposes of God, but accepts and interprets these purposes to the questioners, basically saying, “It’s about what God says, not about what I think or like. It follows Andy’s Axiom: “When you’re the Creator of the Universe, you write the Rules”. Our attitudes about Marriage and about God and His will must be like that of Jesus, who submitted himself to the Father’s Authority in all things – even in that excruciating moment in the Garden of Gethsemane when he prayed, “Not my will but Thine be done”. So the first main point that we want to make is that Marriage is about God’s Revealed Will, found in the Bible, our source of Authority for our faith and practice.

Marriage is also about the Church. In Ephesians 5:31, the Apostle Paul makes reference to the same passage from Genesis that we read today, “Therefore, a man shall leave his father and mother and cleave (stick together like glue) to his wife, and the two shall become one flesh. Again, note that Paul is appealing to the authority of God’s Word to reveal His purposes. And His will for us is wrapped up in submitting our will to His, just as Jesus did.

Here is the pattern of submission: Christ is the Head of the Church, in submission to God the Father. (Again, not my will but Thine be done). The Church Submits to Christ and He loves and cherishes it as his own. We are His body and He loves us. We reaffirm our status as His body every time we take Communion. We become what we are – the Body of Christ in union with Him. Paul says that this mystery is of two people becoming one flesh is great, profound, and that it refers to Christ and the Church.

Now the Church is also the Bride of Christ. Revelation 19:6-9 speaks of the Marriage feast of the Lamb in which the Church, His bride, sits at table with him in that great Eucharist in Heaven. Note that it is the Church as a corporate body which is the Bride, not the individual. This is called “Corporate Solidarity”. It means that God sees us as a group. The book of Hosea is about God as a jilted lover wooing back, and redeeming his unfaithful wife, The Jewish People. In the New Testament, Christians become God’s Bride. Sort of like a second marriage for God in a way = although the standard for being God’s Bride has always been Faith. So Marriage is about the Church.

Having said that however, we also say that Marriage is about the Individual and God. Many marriages fail simply because of overt selfishness. Someone said once that some folks look for a spouse in the same way a tick looks for a dog. So, they get married and they find there’s no dog! It’s a mindset of selfish gratification and Individuality in which you exist for my happiness and to support my individuality. We can call this Absolute Autonomy of the individual. But the absolute autonomy of the individual is not what God has in mind for individuals who marry. Rather, marriage is about Reflecting the Image of God as a male or female (Gen. 1:26, 27). Donald Joy, in his book, Bonding, Relationships in the Image of God, says that God ‘split the Adam’ when he created Eve and gave man and woman the task of coming together with each other in their individuality to reflect the ‘full-spectrum’ image of God, male and female. This involves following Christ in denying ourselves and serving in Humility.

Yesterday, I went with Dr. Zhivago to the Russian Orthodox Orthodox monastery near my home. (My friend's name is actually David Life, but we were told that "Zhivago" means "life" in Russian!) While we were there the Abbot, Fr. Seraphim, told a story about a Canadian woman who was a pious Jew, but secretly became fascinated with the Orthodox Church and began reading Orthodox literature. She became a Christian and was secretly baptized in to the Orthodox Church. Soon, her husband found out. He was thoroughly nonplussed because he held a prominent place in the local synagogue and he couldn't have his wife becoming a Christian!

The woman was persistent, and worked out a deal with him: If he would allow her to worship privately in a little closet room of their home (locked at all times), she continue to lead the life of a faithful Jewish wife. No one would no the difference. Being essentially kind, the husband relented and they lived that way for some time. Eventually she found the web site of the Holy Cross Hermitage in Wayne, WV and began to talk to her husband about all the advantages there would be in vacationing in WV.

Sure enough, one day in August, a car with Canadian plates pulled up to the Monastery. Out pops the woman, who quickly pulls on a head scarf and off drives the husband. Fr. Seraphim was puzzled by this spectacle until the woman explained that she was on vacation and could only visit for two hours while her husband took a little trip to Huntington. They had a pleasant visit, took the tour, and visited the bookstore. When her husband returned, she got in the car with him and went back to Canada, overjoyed that she had been able to visit the monastery.

Fr. Seraphim was amazed at the woman's faith and her willingness to submit herself in obedience to her Jewish husband. Yet she was full of joy in the midst of carrying out her commitment to her marriage.

This is a fascinating vignette into the life of a woman who is pursuing the path of sainthood, suffering in silence, but witnessing loudly with her obedience and dedication to their Lord. It’s a counter-intuitive picture of what it means to live in obedience, not seeking one's own will, but rather serving the Lord in humility and hiddenness.

Interestingly, Jesus says in Mt. 22:30, ‘in the resurrection they neither marry nor are given in marriage, but are like angles in heaven. Our eventual destiny as individuals is to be united with God. “Like an angel” means that there will be a return to the pre-fallen state in which our relationship with god is completely pure and unhindered. “Now we see through a glass darkly, but then face to face,” says Paul. This will be a state of ecstatic union that sex foreshadows, but only hints at. So Marriage is meant to teach us about the individual’s union with God.



Then Finally, Marriage is about Comfort and Kids. In the Book of Common Prayer, we read,

The union of husband and wife in heart, body, and mind is
intended by God for their mutual joy; for the help and comfort
given one another in prosperity and adversity; and, when it is
God’s will, for the procreation of children and their nurture
in the knowledge and love of the Lord. Therefore marriage is
not to be entered into unadvisedly or lightly, but reverently,
deliberately, and in accordance with the purposes for which it
was instituted by God.


The nurture of children is the business of marriage par excellence. In God’s plan a stable marriage between a man and a woman is meant to be the most secure arrangement in which to raise vulnerable little humans.

To sum up, Marriage is God’s idea; it is His Revealed will for the Creation Order.
Marriage is about Church – the unity between God and his People, mirrored in the marital relationship. Marriage is about the Individual and our eventual destiny to be at One with God, mirrored in the unity between spouses. And finally Marriage is about taking Comfort in the person who loves me, and partnering with my lover to raise children in the nurture and admonition of the Lord.

Because of the Fall, we do not reach the Ideal that He intends and some folks fail in the attempt to truly Reflect God’s image and become one flesh. In this case, there is the accommodation of divorce. However, just because we don’t live up to the ideal doesn’t mean that we can recreate marriage in whatever mold we chose.

The reason why the Gay Agenda is so militant, is that it first denies the Creator God and His authority over his creation. Then it denies his purposes for reflecting the full-spectrum Imago Dei, and reproducing, for it is by definition sterile.

Folks, we have a high calling in upholding God’s plan for marriage. It is one of the key reasons we have stepped out in faith to create All Saints Anglican Church. I’d like to close now with this blessing prayer found in the marriage ceremony of the BCP.”

We thank you … for consecrating the union of
man and woman… By the power of your Holy
Spirit, pour out the abundance of your blessing upon every married
man and woman. Defend them from every enemy. Lead
them into all peace. Let their love for each other be a seal
upon their hearts, a mantle about their shoulders, and a
crown upon their foreheads.

Bless us all in our work and in
Our companionship; in our sleeping and in our waking; in
our joys and in our sorrows; in our life and in our death.
Finally, in your mercy, bring us to that table where your
saints feast for ever in your heavenly home; through Jesus
Christ our Lord, who with you and the Holy Spirit lives and
reigns, one God, for ever and ever. Amen.