I gotta admit it.
When I first heard about it, it creeped me out. Yet for hundreds of years, nobody thought
twice about it. That’s simply the way
it was. You got dressed up in your wedding
dress. You put on your wedding
ring. And you made your vows. And after that, you were married to Jesus. That’s how women became nuns. They got married to Jesus, with the wedding
dress, the ring, the whole shebang. You can
even see videos of it
on-line. But now, I realize. It’s not
only nuns that get married to Jesus. Every
Christian gets married to Jesus. But what can this even mean? How can you be married to Jesus? In the words of this passage, God points the
way. Let’s listen and hear what God has
to say.
Again and again in these words God makes the same
point. When you become a follower of
Jesus, Jesus doesn’t simply become your savior. Jesus becomes your spouse. What does this mean? It means marriage means more than just
marriage. Marriage points to something
deeper, a divine relationship that never ends.
And only as you understand that, will
you grasp what God intends not only marriage to be but your relationship with him. Now what do your relationship with God and a
relationship with a human spouse have in common? They both depend on two crucial dynamics. They depend on grace and they depend on
intimacy.
Over the years, you are going to hurt a lot of
people. But if you are married, you will
never hurt someone as frequently you do your spouse. And at the same time, no one will hurt you as
much as your spouse does. Why? You’re
just around that person more. You live with that person day in and day
out. So you have more opportunity to
mess up there than anywhere else. That
means. For any marriage to be successful it needs a lot of grace. As Robert Quillen put it, “A
happy marriage is the union of two good forgivers.”
But how do you become a good forgiver? How do you learn to forgive well? It requires that you consistently do two
things. You show unconditional regard,
and you take unconditional responsibility.
What do I mean? Let’s say your
spouse snaps at you one morning over something insignificant. It’s clear.
They did you wrong. Now you could snap back, but that rarely leads
anywhere good. You could ignore it on
the outside, but inside put it up on your little chalkboard of resentment. You know, the one that details how much
better you are then them. But that
doesn’t lead anywhere good either.
Or you could show them unconditional regard. You could give them a pass, so to speak,
offer your forgiveness. Now that doesn’t
mean you go to your spouse and say. “My
dear, you spoke harshly to me this morning, but I because I love you will
overlook your offense. I will give you
unconditional regard, and offer you my forgiveness.” Trust me, if you’re doing that, you’re not
offering anything but a backhanded slap of self-righteousness. No,
unconditional regard is going to your partner and saying, “Hey, I can see you’re
having a hard time this morning. Can I
help? What’s going on?” It’s moving past the offense to reach out to
the one you love, not with anger or resentment but with concern and care.
And usually when that happens, your spouse will
respond with something like, “I’m really stressed about this or that, and I’m
sorry. I know I took it out on you.”
And that response leads to the other key to this
dynamic of grace, to taking unconditional responsibility. That means, when you mess up, you own
it. You don’t excuse it. You don’t minimize
it. You don’t defend it. You own it.
So when your spouse points out a way in which you hurt them, you take
responsibility. You say, “You are
right. I messed up. I hurt you and I am sorry.” But of course words can be cheap. How do you really live into this
unconditional responsibility?
A story I heard from the preacher, Tim Keller, shows how you live into
it. When Tim first got married, every night
before he went to bed, he had a habit of sitting down on the bed, and tossing
his shoes into the closet across the room..kerplunk Now
naturally, all this tossing scuffed up the baseboards and the walls of the
closet. So his wife, Kathy said. “Tim, stop doing that. You’re messing up the closet.” And Tim said, “Oh yeah, sorry. I won’t do
that.” But Tim had developed this habit years
before. So sure enough the next night,
kerplunk, he threw those shoes into the closet. Again Kathy said, “Tim, please don’t do
that.” Again, Tim said he was sorry, and
agreed not to do it. But sure enough the next night, kerplunk…. Ok, you get the
idea. Now Kathy thought to herself. “Well,
I can see how much my feelings matter to this guy, but he’s not going to turn
me into a nag. I’ll just deal with it.”
Well, a few months pass, with all the time, every night, those shoes
going kerplunk right into the closet.
Then one day, Tim and Kathy have a difficult day together. That night as they go to bed, Tim does it
again, kerplunk, and this time Kathy goes ballistic. Now, Tim is thinking, “Woah, she is way out
of line getting so angry about this little kerplunk. But of course it wasn’t one kerplunk it was
sixty of them.” Finally, Tim got it,
and he went to his wife and said. “I
know this habit really hurts you, but I’m trying to figure out how to stop it.” And she said, “Well, try finding a way to
remind yourself.” So right on the entrance
to the closet, Tim wrote a note. It
said, “Stupid, Stop throwing your shoes into the closet and hurting your wife,
signed God.” Now when Tim did that he
was taking unconditional responsibility.
And when you do that, when you own your own
failings, it frees you to forgive the failings of others. Why? You
know. You’ve got your own issues too. You
have no right to throw stones so to speak.
And any happy marriage has to live in this dynamic, and not only for the
big mistakes, but for these minor ones, the shoes kerplunking in the closet. When a marriage dies or for that matter any
relationship, it’s usually dies the death of a thousand cuts. It’s the resentments built up over the years. It’s the hurts that have happened over and
over again. Yes, maybe a big betrayal
deals the death blow, but the dying began long before then.
And why do you need this dynamic of grace in marriage
or in any relationship? It’s because
that dynamic lies at the heart of the ultimate relationship, the one between
you and God. When God in Jesus died for
you, he showed you unconditional regard.
Even on the cross itself, Jesus showed it. He said.
“Father, forgive them for they know not what they do.” But
God’s unconditional regard calls on you to acknowledge your unconditional
responsibility. Why did God go to that cross after all? God went there to save you. That’s the gospel. You had become so lost that God to die for
you. Nothing less than that could bring
you home. But you are so loved that
God was glad to die for you. And when
you know that, both your unconditional responsibility and God’s unconditional
regard, it frees you for the second dynamic, one that every great marriage
needs. It frees you for intimacy.
Every marriage needs intimacy, physical intimacy,
emotional intimacy the whole shebang. And
when that happens, when a couple becomes intimate, if things work as they typically
do, they bring children into the world.
Their intimacy bears fruit.
And in Paul’s
letter to the church in Rome, he makes that astonishing comparison to our
relationship with God. He talks about
how in the Jewish law a wife is not free to marry until her husband dies. Then he tells the Christians in Rome. That’s what happened to you. Before Jesus came along, you were married to
an abusive spouse called the law. And
out of the intimacy of that twisted legalistic relationship, you bore awful
fruit into the world, fruit that Paul even lists in the
letter to the Galatians. Listen to
it. “repetitive, loveless, cheap sex; a stinking accumulation of
mental and emotional garbage; frenzied and joyless grabs for happiness; trinket
gods; magic-show religion; paranoid loneliness; cutthroat competition;
all-consuming-yet-never-satisfied wants; a brutal temper; an impotence to love
or be loved; divided homes and divided lives; small-minded and lopsided
pursuits; the vicious habit of depersonalizing everyone into a rival;
uncontrolled and uncontrollable addictions; ugly parodies of community.” That’s the fruit of a life lived with the
law. But then Paul says, Jesus came to
win your hand, and by his love, the your old husband, the law died. You
became free to marry him. And out of
that union with Jesus, you bring a far different fruit into the world. Paul lists that
fruit as well; love, joy, peace, patience, kindness,
generosity, faithfulness, gentleness, and self-control.
Jesus
did not ride into Jerusalem on this Palm Sunday simply to offer you his
forgiveness, as amazing and beautiful as that is. Jesus rode into Jerusalem to offer you his
hand, to pursue you as his bride; to unite you with himself. Two people in marriage experience an
intimacy with each other that at its best fills them with ecstasy and wonder.
But where does that wonder and ecstasy come from? It comes from the One who created it. It comes from the one who gave it as a
preview of the ecstasy and wonder still to come. Jesus has come to not only be your
savior. Jesus has come to be your lover
too. This week, you enter not only into
the greatest salvation story in history.
You enter into the greatest love story as well, a God who would not let
death stand in the way of his love for you, whose great love even death could
not defeat. And when you realize that
God loves you like that, that passionately, that completely, it frees you. It frees you to love your spouse, to love
your children, to love your friends, to love your neighbors, even those in the seat beside you like never before. It
frees you to love yourself because you know how ultimately and intimately you
are loved by God. This is the message
of Holy Week. You are loved. You are loved. You are loved.
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