Christ and Marriage

A few delightful passages from an old book by Thomas Torrance, James Torrance, and David Torrance, all Scottish theologians, all brothers.

First, that a husband and wife become one person in marriage:

“The Gospel proclaims that God has not abandoned man and woman in their most intimate relationship.  In Christ God goes with a Christian man and woman.  He is present in Christian marriage continually creating and building it to his glory and to man’s and woman’s mutual comfort and happiness.  By his Holy Spirit he brings us again and again to the cross in humility, repentance and renewal.  For the cross is the place where we are made by the Holy Spirit to die to ourselves and to rise ever again as a new person, one new person, man and wife, in Christ Jesus.  This is something which must and does happen again and again.  Having committed ourselves, our love and our marriage to the Lord, the Lord presides over our marriage, he assumes the responsibility for deepening our love and building our marriage, seeking to perfect it through the years.  In Christian marriage, God is always present in all his creative redeeming power and love.” (A Passion for Christ, 95)

Torrance here reminds us of the enduring truth of Genesis 2 – that a man and woman become one flesh in marriage.  The Christian single person is free.  That man or woman does not have to marry to be whole.  Christ is the spouse for every Christian person, as Laura Smit’s book Loves Me, Loves Me Not reminded me recently.  The Christian who marries has a new identity – husband and wife – in Christ Jesus.  Paul speaks of marriage as mysteriously tied to Christ’s relationship to his church.  In this way, our marriages remind us of our salvation.  In both, we are told “this is a great unity.  There are two, and yet it is not so complex as that you are separate.  You are one.”  This is the case for husbands with their wives in Christ.  This is the case for the church with Christ.

Torrance goes on to talk about God’s self-giving to be married to us:

“In his covenant with us in Christ, God gave himself to us, and goes on giving himself to us, in all his wholeness and entirety.  This is the incredible wonder and mystery of the Incarnation – something happened to God!  God has given himself and goes on giving himself in entirety to us in Christ.” (95)

One of the sure-fire ways God uses to move me from my drudgery and dullness is to show me what it means that Christ gave up his wealth and authority with his Father over the heavens and earth to become poor, to become a tiny baby in the arms of his mother Mary.  Torrance reminds me that this change that God took on is also an illustration of marriage.  “A man will leave his mother and father to be united to his wife.”

This ennobles the challenge of marriage.  Give of yourself in your marriage.  God gives of himself in his marriage.  This is the way of the cosmos.  All love is work.  Labors of love are still love.

John 7 - Keeping God's Words

A group Bible study looked together at John 7:1-24.  This passage caught me:

"Jesus answered, "My teaching is not my own.  It comes from the one who sent me.  Anyone who chooses to do the will of God will find out whether my teaching comes from God or whether I speak on my own.  Whoever speaks on their own does so to gain personal glory, but he who seeks the glory of the one who sent him is a man of truth; there is nothing false about him.  Has not Moses given you the law?  Yet not one of you keeps the law.  Why are you trying to kill me?" (John 7:16-19)

Through most of the discussion, I remained puzzled about Jesus' transition from the Father's teaching to Moses and the law.  But in both cases, we are dealing with the question of 'keeping.'  Jesus receives teaching from the Father.  He keeps it.  The Jews receive the law from Moses.  They don't keep it.  Keeping a teaching or a law isn't storing something away in an attic.  My wife and I recently threw away a number of things from our attic that we realized we weren't going to use.  Two years from now, we'd be asking ourselves yet again, "Why are we keeping this?"  Keeping the law would have more to do with what Psalm 119 is talking about:

"How can a young person stay on the path of purity?  By living according to your word.  I seek you with all my heart; do not let me stray from your commands.  I have hidden your word in my heart that I might not sin against you.  Praise be to you, Lord; teach me your decrees.  With my lips I recount all the laws that come from your mouth.  I rejoice in following your statutes as one rejoices in great riches.  I meditate on your precepts and consider your ways.  I delight in your decrees; I will not neglect your word." (Psalm 119:9-16)

Think of the verbs: words are lived, hidden, recounted, rejoiced in, meditated upon, and delighted in.  This is how Jesus treats his Father's words.  Failure to do so is failure to keep.

If you are flooded in words, take some time and let most of them go and dwell with the words of the Bible alone.  The words of the Bible are the words of life.  These are the creative words from Genesis with which God speaks everything into being.  If you can't slow down or put aside other words to tend to those of the Bible, I leave you with the words of someone from this same Bible study: "I have experienced the power of the Lord, and it has almost always involved me going out of my comfort zone."  I circled the words 'comfort zone'.  We all have them.  Areas of thought, feeling, and life that we hesitate to exit.  As we prayed, quite a few of us said things like this, "God, make me more confident to be uncomfortable."  I hope it is your prayer too.  Wanting to keep God's words is the first step to actually keeping them.  And we can ask God to do this for us.  

The best news of all is that those in Christ have his Spirit so that we love to do the Father's will in the same way that Jesus does.  The common thread is the life lived by the Holy Spirit.  The old life which refused to obey God has been put to death, and the new life in the Spirit loves God's words.  In this new life, we live the words, hide them in our hearts, recount them, rejoice in them, meditate upon them, and delight in them.  This is what Jesus does.  This is what we do.

Children

Stratford Caldecott maintains that there is something infinite about childhood.  He explains:

"The pure gaze of innocence is one that does not secretly look for what can be got out of something or someone.  It sees things as they are in their own right.  The energy behind the gaze is not diverted by a variety of other passions.  When a baby wants something, it wants that thing completely, as anyone who has witnessed a tantrum must see.  Thus the child lives each moment more intensely than those who have grown old in sin.  His eyes are clearer, his ears keener, his energy stronger.  He lives in a universe that seems to go on forever, for he has not had the experience of many winters and summers, and of the flickering parade of birthdays through the years.  He has no yardstick against which to measure his life.  This intensity of experience is partly a function of the way memory and imagination work.  It is the memory of time that makes us old; remembering eternity makes us young again." (Caldecott, Beauty of the Word)

Everytime you see a thing or a person as a gift in itself, you are becoming young again and looking on the world as a child.  And everytime you see God as a gift in himself, you are becoming a child of God again - "Whoever does not receive the kingdom of God like a child shall not enter it" (Mark 10:15)

Jesus' Victory

Jesus’ victory alone – is it enough?  To even ask the question is to acknowledge that life feels like defeat at times.  If we were fulfilled and had all we desired, why would we search for any other victory than what we already have in him?  

 

It seems to me that the biblical faith stakes everything on a victory that comes in the midst of what looks like defeat.  We gain our life by losing it.  To the one who toils at this ground, the one who strives to obey without too much regard for more worldly measures of success, a victory comes that is not one’s own, but which belongs to Christ.  This person has a chance to share in Christ’s victory and to be satisfied. 

 

Jesus’ victory is not staked upon his rhetorical skill or upon his gifts for healing.  His victory is established by his comprehensive life and the positive force of his obedience and of his love.  The obedient life lived toward God looks so passive and dependent from the world’s perspective, but it is the most forceful, wise, positive decision to be made with one’s life – for to give one’s life to God is to gain it back again, even if it is lost. 

 

And Christ’s death is not for himself alone.  By the grace of God, it is vicarious, whereby the benefits of his life and of his death and of his new life are shared generously.  His status as God’s Beloved Son is unique by nature, but whatever else we could want or need by way of adoption is provided to us by grace.  Only that Jesus Christ be received as Jesus Christ, all else will suffice for us, far beyond what we could know or expect. 

 

This is the good news for our secular, post-modern era and its unique challenges: that although we consider everything outside our own emotions and our own heads with suspicion with regard to forming our personal identity, Jesus gives the gift of finding ourselves, the gift of a true identity and the gift of a solid basis for reality outside of ourselves. For even the darkest night, Jesus’ gifts are enough light to fill the sky. 

 

For the most downtrodden of us, the most self-pitying of us, his gift is the sort that comforts and satisfies, not least because this comfort is rooted in our own pain and sin-sick sorrow.  We were right to feel as we did.  It was all true.  But through this weakness comes strength.  Strength over and against the allegiance-claiming world and also for the sake of this same world, which God loves.  We are not orphans or beholden to any other lord.  Christ’s love frees us from all tyranny – even the tyranny of our own selves – and deputizes us for love and service in his name, as his ambassadors. 

 

And though all burdens are equally manageable to him in his glory, that is not so for us. Some hours weigh heavily.  Some days crush us. The early morning burden may take one hour to give him.  The late afternoon burden may take one minute.  With Christ, we should expect comfort.  And we should wrestle until we get it.  We should dig through the mess of our lives in prayer until we find the cross of Jesus Christ. Where else would we find victory?  What other victory is there?  His pain is solidarity.  But for all the work to get there, it is worth it.  Only when we find him at his cross do we find the reminder that we never skip straight to hope or to resurrection in our lives.  Only when we find him at his cross are we immediately flooded with transcendent and prevailing hope of a great victory.  This hope is one step away, but the only one who can say this, and the only who can make such a step is the one who finds Christ at his cross.  That is the great overview of the world, the lookout on the universe.  We can only overcome the world because, at a point in time, Christ overcame the world. 

Living for Others

Jesus frees us from the need to live for others so that we can live for the sake of others.  It is a confusing idea because this formula suggests that others are both our problem, and also that others are our destiny.  How can this be?  The only solution is that what Jesus is engaged in is new creation.  Our new loyalty is to Christ alone, as our Savior and Lord.  He reserves the right to re-establish the grounds of our relation to the world.  If we know others, it is through knowing him.  If others know us, it is in knowing him.  Paul’s gospel is ours: “I have been crucified with Christ, and I no longer live, but Christ lives in me.  The life I live in the body I live by faith in the Son of God, who loved me and gave himself for me. (Gal. 2:20) 

 

Our tribulations and trials are now seen through the lens of the cross of Jesus Christ, for his experience is now the closest to us.  As Americans, this is surprising because normally training gives way at some point to full responsibility.  At some point, the boss stops doing your job for you and expects you as a fully trained employee to do the work all by yourself.  But maturity always corresponds to deeper resemblance to the life of God rather than cohering to some cultural norm of our society.  The life of God is mutuality, inter-dependence, creative collaboration, and endless love.  Father, Son, and Holy Spirit are co-authors of a work of creation, and also of a work of redemption.  Jesus leads us not only to himself, but to a new relationship with his Father which is fashioned after his own relationship.  The Holy Spirit likewise points us to himself, and also beyond himself, to Jesus.  Our center of gravity is not in ourselves but in God, and his whole story as we find it unveiled to us in Scripture. 

 

This is the source of our identity, and its fruit is this: that we each become less brittle, less prone to wilt beneath the burdens of loving one another well.  Christ has established our lives so firmly in himself that we no longer need to manipulate one another, coerce one another, or compete with one another for exclusive prizes and elite recognition.  Nor do we discover what we shall become by looking at menus provided by marketers skilled in catering to the sovereign self.  Instead, we look to Christ, who does not cater to us, does not recognize our own selves as sovereign, and does not relate to us as a vendor happy to have our business. 

 

He has saved us from the other stories which threaten to overwhelm the story that he tells about us: that we are sheep, and that he is our shepherd.  He is the one who loves us, who knows our needs better than we do, and prepares for our future better than we can worry about it.  He turns nuisances, threats, and enemies into neighbors.  He frees us from the need to serve others so that we can freely live to serve others.

Knowing Christ Everyday

Knowing Christ everyday is vastly superior to knowing Christ once in awhile.  I was with a friend earlier today in the context of a Bible study who said that he was thankful that we could have a chance to be with the Lord together during the week.  There was agreement around the table.  To know Christ is always refreshing. 

 

Why do we resist him so frequently?  How is it that we can commune with him with such joy on a Sunday and manage to stay away from anything religious throughout the week?  Christ’s cross makes us so safe from all harm that we are able to finally see the truth – that we prefer our own ways to his, that we would rather be distracted with trifling novelties than to seek meaning from him.  He saves us from having to go too long on our own strength.  On our own strength, things fall through our fingers which, with him, will not be lost.  He frees us to love our neighbors more than ourselves, to embrace life with joy, to see immense value in those who aren’t well regarded in the world. 

 

Knowing Christ once in awhile is better than not knowing him at all.  I’ve known the sheer pleasure of being reminded of his grace when I hadn’t tended to him in weeks.  But knowing Christ every now and again leads to a lot of faking.  We fake-forgive.  We fake-love.  We fake-listen.  We pretend to be working harder than we are.  Knowing Christ everyday frees us from the feared consequences of the choices we make in this life.  Our bosses aren’t our lord.  Our parents aren’t our lord.  Jesus has freed us from other lords so that he can be our Lord in everything. 

 

And he is a good lord to have because he knows us.  He knows our ways.  He knows how little interest we have in being good subjects of his kingdom.  He has given us not only himself, but he has restored our wills.  We can be active participants in what God is doing right now.  We forget this because by the end of the day, we feel the weight of our sin – our egos are bruised, our tails are between our legs.  We know full well we aren’t the supermen or superwomen we thought we were once we’d had our morning cup of coffee.  But the Lordship of Christ is gentle and refreshing, so refreshing that he has allowed us to know his unsurpassable strength even when we are at our weakest. 

 

For every prayer I give to him, I find the strangest most comforting assurances – that by simply telling the simple truth without embellishment, that God may well renew the hope of those around me.  Confiding my dreads to him, I find that the all-powerful God wants goodness and love to arise from the circumstances of my life just as much as I do.

Focused on the Cross in all Circumstances

Staying focused on Christ and his cross is an essential in hard times.  When the world presses in on us, we have a refuge.  At the cross, our greatest sin is forgiven.  We are restored to the image of Jesus Christ.  We are reminded that Christ has overcome the world. 

 

In the same way that the world was lost through a bite of fruit, the world was won through one man’s death and resurrection.  Jesus carried all sin and death into the grave with him and buried it there.  Whatever guilt or shame we bear is merely a reminder of the truth that we are sinners and is meant only to drive us to claim again the truth that Jesus is a great Savior. 

 

It strikes me how often I flee to other comforts.  The comfort of a good home.  The comfort of a family who love me.  The comfort of health.  The comfort of gifts and talents.  The comfort of stability.  But when one of these seems to have shaky foundations, it becomes apparent that these things can’t save me.  They are idols, and a poor replacement for the wonderful salvation we have in Christ.  They can’t promise what he can.  They can’t deliver what he can.  But when all the other options have been tried, when I finally run out of answers, Christ is there. 

 

And he does satisfy with his grace, covering over my sin, suffering punishment on my behalf.  He also satisfies with his goodness.  He is a wonderful person, who carefully yet naturally avoided the clumping cliques of humanity, speaking easily for God and against every faction and special interest group.  Jesus alone speaks entirely with and for God.  Thus, he frustrates us when he does things we love, and then something we don’t understand and won’t conform to our expectations.  But we also love him for this.  “My thoughts are not your thoughts, nor are your ways my ways.” Says Isaiah 55:8. 

 

We learn to appreciate this when we wrestle long enough with our God-resentments and wrestle over them with God in prayer.  We appreciate it because although God wrestles with us, God uses the encounter to teach us what it means to actually wrestle with him and not another human being like ourselves.  Who do we think we are, to wrestle with God this way?  And yet, we come away simultaneously weaker and stronger – weaker, for we see the truth about who we are compared to God – but also, stronger, because God drew near to us.  We saw him.  We heard his voice. 

 

We come to love the God for who he is, not for who we’d sometimes like him to be.  We come to appreciate that God doesn’t cater to our whims, fancies, and desires, and we see that it is fitting that we should instead conform ourselves to him.  Rather than grudgingly accept this, we embrace it because our sin has been punished in him.  He is the one with the wounds in his wrists, wounds which say our name, and continually plead before God the Father in solidarity with us.  It is such good news – we are part of the life of God through Jesus Christ.