Ephesians 5: 21-33

June 6, 2009

Exordium: No matter how many books we read, or songs we sing, no matter how many plays or movies we watch, there is still something about marriage and the family that is beyond us.  How did it start and what is it really for? How come we have so much trouble making it work?

We scratch our heads and say, “It is all a mystery to me.”  That is just what the Bible says about this wonderful and frustrating gift of marriage.  Because Paul, after giving this wonderful description of the Christian home, says, “This is a great mystery.”

There is the clue we need to understand this riddle of the home.  It is really about something else, something far more grand than we have ever seen. It is a kind of an image, a shadow of something else. When we grasp that we are on our way to understanding this great gift, and making it work!

• 1. LET’S LOOK AT THE MAGNIFICENSE OF THE MYSTERY!

The mystery points to an even greater reality which our little minds can hardly comprehend.  That mystery is the incredible love affair between the eternal God and mortal, frail sinners, whom He has made His own, and whom He loves in a way that we cannot easily fathom. It is about a marriage which the Heavenly Father has made for His Son the Lord Jesus Christ. He has given Him a church, an assembly of folk who love Him and are indebted to Him forever for their very life and hope and future.

This theme is played out in the earlier parts of the Bible where the prophets of Israel describe God as “the husband of His people.”  He has taken them to Himself as a groom takes a bride and has cared for her with loving kindness and great sacrifice and suffering. But she has run after other lovers, idols, which were most repugnant to Him.

One whole book, the prophet Hosea’s book is devoted to this theme. Behind the Song of Solomon, there is this background theme between the Lover and his bride, the picture of God and His church.

The mystery is the story of God and His crown of creation, man, and how they are to relate to each other.  Once there were two wills in the world, God’s and Adam’s. How would they harmonize? Adam ought to have coalesced his will into the will of God, but he did not. He asserted his own will. Therefore, sin and rebellion entered the world.

But, God who is the great Lover reached out to His wayward people and brought them back from their wanderings into His loving care. Their part is to respond to Him, to follow His leading, and to depend on Him for all their needs. He is to be to them as a leader, a shepherd, guiding them into safe and healthy and good places.  He is to comfort them with His love and hold them in His arms as a beloved bride. They are to receive His love and obey His instructions.   He does not force them; He does not use His power to crush them, but rather to care for them.

• 1. THE HIDDENENESS OF THIS MYSTERY

In a play there is something unknown, although when it is revealed you say to yourself I should have seen that before. Why did I not get it when this was said and that was done? So it is with the mystery of Christ and his Church.  It is hidden from us now and though the reality is always there, it is covered waiting to be revealed in the days to come. That is what the Bible means by mystery, something you could not have guessed.  It had to be told to you.  It was there all the time but until revealed it remained hidden to you.

This great reality is being hinted at by the relation between man and woman. God has put that front and center in the human story, so that He could use it as an analogy, a model of what is happening invisibly in the world. He is creating a people for himself who will be His throughout eternity. The male-female connection is to be the clue to what He is doing even now.

We don’t take this arrangement seriously enough. We make jokes about it, we distort it, we abuse it, we pervert it, but we don’t read it for what it really is saying to us, because the thing in itself is mysterious.  It too has to be revealed. As a child, you could not figure out for yourself the riddle of life. It had to be told to you, it had to be revealed. It was so creative and so far from human figuring that it remained a mystery until it was told.

But the reality is God created the union of man and women to be the clue to so much. We discover there that one person can know another person in a deeper way than ever conceived before. Is that why sometimes after persons marry they may begin to show an interest in the things of God? They have discovered the possibilities of relationship which they had not known before.

III.   THE PORTRAYAL OF THE MYSTERY

We are “all actors on the stage of history” according to Shakespeare, and he was right. We are players painting a picture for the audience.  The audience is the world around us. We want to get a message to them, a revelation of what is hidden from them until we make it clear. Our marriages are the scenes of the play; each one contributes to the whole revelation.  Our marriages are enacted parables – pointing to the great heavenly reality of Christ and the Church.

So our marriages have meaning beyond what we may have realized. But you say, I thought the purpose of marriage was:

• companionship and

• procreation and

• the comfort and wellbeing of the persons in the marriage and

• the care and nurture of the young

Yes, all those things, but God, who is all-wise, accomplishes many things with one action and He does all these.  But the clue to the mystery of life is not in them. It is in the relation of husband and wife pointing to the mysterious love between God and his people.

When the central purpose of marriage is known and lived, the whole marriage fulfills all these functions even better.  That is why marriages don’t work very well in Muslim lands. The higher purpose is not known to them, and the god whom they worship does not enter into relation with his people.

We are to play out the roles which God has assigned to us very carefully, even artfully, and beautifully so that by God’s grace, the world roundabout may see the portrayal of true love, “heavenly style” and fall down and worship the God who loves His people with an everlasting love.

It should not be so hard for us to do this, because we have such good actors to follow. We are “the understudy” to God the Father, who loves us unconditionally, who loves not because the church is beautiful or perfect, but in order to make her beautiful and to perfect her for their wedding day.

She has great need of Him, and He surrenders Himself, His very life, to meet her need. He cleanses her using His own blood and sets her apart for Himself away from all others.

The Church in her ideal state is a marvelous pattern to follow. She looks to her lover for her needs and keeps herself from all others.  She follows His lead because she knows His great love for her would always seek her wellbeing. She gladly surrenders to his love because she sees how He has surrendered Himself to her devotion.

So, on the stage of the Christian home, which itself has been created by the Gospel with this in mind, the drama is unfolded. The Spirit may use the play to move hearts to see beyond the script to the One who wrote the script, the God and Father of our Lord Jesus Christ.

• • 1. THE FUTURE OF THE MYSTERY

But what is to happen from all this portrayal of the union between the Savior and His body, the groom and His bride? The drama does not go on forever. There comes an end when marriage as we know it will be no more and there will no longer be an opportunity to display the wonders of Christ’s love by our daily lives.

Christ will return and call His own to Himself and say, “Come ye blessed of my Father inherit the kingdom prepared for you from the foundation of the world.” The King and Queen will sit down together at the marriage supper and there will be the greatest of joy when they are at last together forever.  Faith will be turned to sight, limitation to liberation, prayer to praise, and so shall they ever be with their Lord, their lover.

You can see how everything about marriage is future-oriented.  It points forward and upward.  It means that marriages in heaven will be even deeper and more intimate than they have been on this earth. They will be given opportunity for deeper knowledge of each other, because the limitations of the flesh will be gone. So Hosea tells of God’s word to Israel, “I will betroth you to me for ever.” (Hosea 2:19)

Then husband and wife will have fulfilled their great purpose of portrayal and the reward will be fellowship with the Lamb Himself. Since both husband and wife are part of the bride, they will enter into the marriage with Christ with a greater delight than those who never sought to depict the great mystery. That will be their reward.

Conclusion: So start anew husbands and wives. You may have lost time. Stop quibbling about earthly things and unfold the drama you were created to portray.  Men be men! Women be women! With Christ as head of both.

Take your roles and play them with all your hearts unto the glory of Christ and the Church. Glen C. Knecht