The Essence of Marriage

Thirteenth Sunday after Pentecost

August 18, 2013

Matthew 19:4-9

The Essence of Marriage

In the name of Jesus.

I.

Please turn to page 141 in your hymnal. . . . On the bottom of the page, read the marriage vows.

Adam, will you take Eve to be your wife? Will you be guided by the counsel and direction God has given in His Word and love your wife as Christ loved the Church? Will you be faithful to her, cherish her, support her, and help her in sickness and in health as long as you both shall live?

To whom is Adam answering? Not to Eve, but to the pastor. And to whom is Adam making his promise? Not to the pastor, but to Christ Jesus.

Many couples write their own marriage vows. Many of them say something along the lines of “I love you, and I love being with you.” These homemade vows made between human beings declare love that already exists. Vows made to God make promises about the future.

II.

When you first fall in love, you think you love the person, but you don't really. You can't really know who the person is right away. That takes years. You can love your idea of the person—and you'll always find out that you didn't really know them. When you date and marry someone, you're dating and marrying a stranger.

So the promises that you make should be promises to love that stranger, instead of simply proclaiming love for a beautiful idea on a beautiful day in a beautiful place.

III.

Many reject vows and marriage altogether. Many dismiss marriage as restrictive and harmful. Limiting love to a particular type of romantic feeling, they say,

Why do we need a piece of paper in order to love one another? I don't need a piece of paper to love you! (Tim Keller, The Meaning of Marriage, page 77)

This kind of “love” is measured by how emotionally desirous someone is for someone else's affection in the moment. Modern people think of love in such subjective terms that if there is any duty involved, it is considered bad.

For example, Pastor Keller notes that the modern of view of intimacy assumes that each partner is in the mood. It also assumes that sex is always for your own benefit; if you don't feel like it, it would be dishonest to yourself.

So love is often reduced to sex, and when the bedroom fails to entice, then the love is gone.

IV.

The essence of marriage is not romantic passion, but the promise of future faithfulness. Marriage is a promise.

When marriage is a promise to Christ to be faithful to your spouse, to cherish her, to support her, and to help her in sickness and in health as long as you both shall live, then you have the foundation for a healthy marriage and . . . romantic love.

Here's the thing. The modern world demands that romantic love is something that must completely unforced. It must happened spontaneously. But Pastor Keller points out that intense desire for someone else simply can't last. Then we will need to find a new person to awaken the joy of romantic desire in us. Therefore, the argument goes, lifelong marriage is the enemy of romantic love.

But in truth, the only way for you to be truly free is to link your feelings to a promise. You promise to love your spouse, day in and day out, maintaining your promised love for them when it is not thrilling to do so. You are considering them as most important.

And acts of love lead to feelings of love. Author C. S. Lewis put it well.

[T]hough natural likings should normally be encouraged, it would be quite wrong to think that the way to become charitable is to sit trying to manufacture affectionate feelings. . . . The rule for all of us is perfectly simple. Do not waste time bothering whether you “love” your neighbor; act as if you did. As soon as we do this we find one of the great secrets. When you are behaving as if you loved someone, you will presently come to love him. . . . [W]henever we do good to another [person], just because it is a [person], made (like us) by God, and desiring [their] own happiness as we desire ours, we shall have learned to love [them] a little more, or, at least, to dislike [them] less. . . . The worldly man treats certain people kindly because he “likes” them: the Christian, trying to treat everyone kindly, finds himself liking more and more people as he goes on—including people he could not even have imagined himself liking at the beginning. (C.S. Lewis, Mere Christianity, Macmillan, 1996, pages 116-117)

V.

So when St. Paul says, “Husbands ought to love their wives,” he isn't saying that they have to feel a certain romantic feeling toward their wives. He is saying that they ought to serve them with consideration and with deeds. In every marriage there are dry spells when there isn't much goodwill to go around. But instead of feeling entitled to bail out of the marriage through sinful divorce or by selfish isolation, do acts of love. Despite your lack of feelings or even hostile feelings, love your enemy.

We always think of “loving your enemy” as though it is limited to the bully at school or the enemy soldier in war. Broaden your definition to include your spouse and you will find out what true love is. When you wait to feel a certain way about your spouse before you act, you seldon do. But when you act in love toward them despite your feelings, affection frequently grows over time. This is true of parents' love for their children; it's true for spouses as well, just like you promised.

This pattern is throughly Christian. He lived and died for His enemies and by acting made you His friend. Go and do likewise: husbands, love your wives.

No one has greater love than this, that someone would lay down his life for his friends. You are My friends if you do what I command you. I do not call you slaves anymore, because a slave doesn’t know what his master is doing. I have called you friends, because I have made known to you everything I have heard from My Father. You did not choose Me, but I chose you. I appointed you that you should go out and produce fruit and that your fruit should remain, so that whatever you ask the Father in My name, He will give you. This is what I command you: Love one another. (John 15:13-17) . . .

. . . and be faithful to her, cherish her, support her, and help her in sickness and in health as long as you both shall live.

In the name of the Father

and of the † Son and

of the Holy Spirit. Amen.