God’s Gift Of Marriage
Ephesians 5:22-33; John 2:1-11
In the name of the Father and of the + Son and of the Holy Spirit.
St. John 2:6-10 On the third day there was a wedding in Cana of Galilee, and the mother of Jesus was there. 2 Now both Jesus and His disciples were invited to the wedding.”
Dear fellow redeemed in Christ our Lord… Today’s Gospel depicts Jesus taking part in and adding to the joy of a wedding feast in Cana of Galilee. While this Gospel certainly deals with much more than marriage, I will follow the lead of Martin Luther when he preached on this passage and address the divine gift and institution of marriage.
We live in a culture in which human sexuality has been cheapened and degraded. Nearly everywhere you look – whether on TV or the movies or the news or the internet, or even casual conversations with friends or co-workers we are bombarded with so-called “humor” laced with sexual double entendre or adolescent innuendo about body parts. Everything is sexualized, and it’s only going to get worse.
So, how are we as Christians to deal with this? Well, we don’t want to seem uptight and puritanical, but at the same time, human sexuality and morality is not something to treat lightly or casually. Ever.
The Christian approach to this is not to be prudish, in other words to consider sexuality as something inherently tainted by its sensual nature and far too fleshly and physical to be considered good or godly. Those who are prudish don’t believe that human sexuality is a good gift of the Creator, that He is the One who made the one flesh, physical, sexual relationship from the very beginning, before sin ever entered into the world. That approach fails fully to recognize that sexuality and sexual activity is a gift to be received and enjoyed most certainly within marriage by husband and wife, that God created it for their mutual delight and companionship, and for the creation of new human life when He grants it.
But those on the other end of the spectrum who engage in raunchy talk and immoral behavior actually have the same problem as the prudish; they also fail to treat human sexuality as a gift of God. They diminish it to a juvenile punchline and engage in sexual relationships that certainly do not have God’s blessing. To them waiting until you’re married is just plain weird and frowned upon; and chastity is something to be mocked. Human sexuality is not treated as special and God-given; rather, it is distorted to be merely the fulfillment of a personal need or desire. In the end, by rejecting the goodness of God’s gift of marriage, both the prudish and the raunchy commit the same error.
But in today’s Gospel we see that Jesus blesses marriage and the sexual relationship within it as good and holy. Marriage is not just a human arrangement or merely a legal matter on a piece of paper; it is God joining one man and one woman together; it is God making one flesh from two people. Whether you are married or single, God teaches you in His Word to honor marriage highly, not only in how you act, but also in how you talk about it with friends and family. Through marriage God seeks to protect us from the evils of selfishness, loneliness, lust, doubt, and self-sufficiency. And He works through marriage to preserve society, so that the saving Gospel of Christ may be preached. Let’s go through each of those points individually:
First, selfishness threatens to destroy us; and in marriage God works to protect us from this. He places a flesh-and-blood spouse directly before our eyes, a spouse with real and specific needs. God calls us out of a self-absorbed life that invents its own good works, and into a devoted life that takes care of the spouse He has given. As St. Paul declares in today’s Epistle, a husband is to love his wife as Christ loved the Church and sacrificed Himself for her, and a wife is to submit to her husband as to the Lord. In this way, God does two things: He builds up His people and He beats down selfishness.
Second, lust threatens to ruin us. The book of Proverbs consistently refers to sexual enticements as one of the chief ways in which people are led into ruin. In marriage God seeks to protect us from the destructiveness of lust. St. Paul, who himself was single, counsels all who suffer from lust that they should marry, for this is God’s good and gracious provision for rendering proper affection one to the other. This is also one of the reasons why Paul tells spouses not to withhold themselves from each other for lengthy periods of time. So, one of God’s blessings in marriage is the dampening and controlling of lust.
Third, loneliness threatens to destroy us. Through the workings of the devil, the world, and our own sinful flesh, the lonely become isolated and cut off. But in marriage God protects us from loneliness, and He gives us a companion for comfort and camaraderie in life. In the Garden of Eden, God said, “It is not good that man should be alone; I will make him a helper comparable to him” (Gen 2:18). The Hebrew term is “help-meet,” a compliment and completion to the man. Adam received Eve as God’s gift of a companion that brought them both completeness: Such is God’s intention for marriage also today.
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Fourth, doubt threatens to destroy us. Although we would like to believe that we always make good decisions in life, we know that sin clouds our hearts and minds. So how can we be certain that we have chosen the right partner? Through marriage God guards against such doubt by giving you the certainty that He is the One who married you to your spouse; that person is the one the Lord Himself has given you to love and to be committed to, even though they’re far from perfect. And what the Lord has done stands far above any feelings you may or may not have, especially if you ever wonder whether you should have done differently. A man and woman choose to marry each other; but what really and finally counts is that it is the Lord who unites them. In this way God protects marriage from doubt with the certainty that He is the One who has made and blessed the union.
Fifth, self-sufficiency threatens to destroy us. We tend to think that we can do just fine on our own without God. Without the calling of serving a spouse in marriage, sinners would perceive even less need for God. But in marriage God protects us from such misguided self-sufficiency. In marriage God calls husband and wife to the holy vocation and blessing of serving each other in Christ. And when husband and wife fail each other, God puts His law to work by afflicting their consciences and disturbing their self-sufficiency. In short, God drives them to depend on Him. He drives them back to Himself, to find forgiveness, strength, and hope in Christ. Confession and Absolution, the preaching of the Gospel, and the Body and Blood of Christ become their lifeblood, making them right with God and able again to serve each other.
Finally, God preserves society through marriage. Without this institution, the basic unit of society, the family, would crumble. And it is crumbling in our world today due to the fact that our laws not only allow non-Godly relationships, but insist that they are just as acceptable if not better than Godly ones. And this is happening around us, where conflict and chaos and self-will replace familial love. To prevent such evil, God established and blessed marriage from the beginning and said, “Be fruitful and multiply; fill the earth and subdue it” (Gen 1:28). And with that creative word, God continues to bless the union of husband and wife so that children are conceived and born.
This, by the way, is why gay marriage simply cannot be condoned, encouraged, or even tolerated. Every child has a father and a mother, male and female. Every father and mother is given a divine responsibility toward their children and toward one another within the commitment of marriage. Homosexual relationships can only fake that and cannot produce children. So-called gay “marriage” is sterile, not by reason of health defect or age, but by nature. God’s purpose in marriage is for husband and wife to serve not only each other but also their children by protecting, providing for, and nurturing them in the training and instruction of the Lord. Founded upon God’s gift of the family, human society can be peaceably ordered. And this in turn gives a good context for the saving Word of Christ to be preached and taught both in the church and the home.
All of this is God’s good gift. And all of this is meant to drive us to the greater reality to which marriage points. The fact of the matter is, to one degree or another, all marriages are broken marriages, for a marriage is the union of two sinners. Whether a Christian is single or married, divorced, widowed, young or old, as members of the Church we all are in a marital relationship that rescues and saves us. The Church has been united with her holy Groom, Jesus.
In the Epistle today Paul spent a lot of time talking about husbands and wives and marriage. And then he concluded his comments in verse 32 by saying, “This is a great mystery, but I speak concerning Christ and the church.” Earthly marriage – Godly marriage – is a sign of the greater and perfect love that God has for His people and the heavenly union that exists between them.
From all eternity, before marriage was instituted, it was planned that Christ would lay down His life for His bride; He would sacrifice Himself for the church, to save her from her fall into sin. Even as Adam was put into a deep sleep, and Eve was created from his side, so Jesus was put into the sleep of death on the cross, that this new Eve might be created from the sacramental blood and water that flowed from His side.
Again, St. Paul: “…Christ loved the church and gave Himself up for her, that He might sanctify and cleanse her by the washing of water with the Word, that He might present her to Himself a glorious church, not having any spot or wrinkle or any such thing, but that she should be holy and without blemish.” For everyone whom sin has contaminated, or whose marriages and families are dented, damaged, or broken, Jesus shed His blood to cleanse you of every sin; He sanctified you and made you holy for Himself by the water and the Word of Baptism. You stand before God spotless and perfect in the family of His Church, His holy bride.
And as husband and wife are given in marriage to become one flesh, so our Lord unites Himself to us and makes Himself one flesh with us – one flesh to the extent that we are now members of His body. He is the Son of God and we are called sons of God. He holds in His hand the riches and treasures of heaven, and those treasures are ours to hold and take to heart. He is the Righteous One, therefore we are declared righteous before God. The death He died no longer holds Him in the grave, and neither can death hold us in the grave. The Bride shares in everything that belongs to the Groom. That’s how marriage works with Jesus. What is His is now ours as well.
This is the joy of the eternal wedding feast that we are given a glimpse of in the Gospel. The ritual washing water of the Law is turned into the joyous wedding wine of the Gospel. The best is saved for last, and that best is Jesus – and His forgiveness and mercy and life – which are all for you. Even now in Divine Service the heavenly groom, our Lord Christ, comes to His bride to comfort her and to speak words of love to her. He remembers the commitment He made to you at Baptism. He gives Himself to you in Holy Communion that you may share fully in His life.
So, dear fellow redeemed, do not fear, do not doubt. Jesus rejoices over you to have you as His own. Come, therefore, in faith to His table, that you may partake in the eternal wedding feast. As it is written, “Blessed are those who are invited to the marriage supper of the Lamb!”
In the name of the Father and of the + Son and of the Holy Spirit.
