30 Years of Faithfulness

Today my parents celebrated thirty years of marriage. We dug out their wedding pictures, laughed at the '70s fashions, and marveled at how ridiculously young and good looking they were. Thirty years is an awfully long time to be with the same person in our culture, and I'm so thankful for the attitude my parents have toward their marriage. I remember being wonderfully comforted as a child when my mom told me (prefaced with a "just in case you've ever worried about this...") that I didn't have to be afraid that they would ever get divorced; that divorce wasn't something they would ever consider.

The anomaly of my parents' long lasting marriage reminded me of my own counter-cultural lifestyle. After years of Christian schooling, having secular friends who don't really understand the motivation behind the whole waiting 'til marriage thing, or worse, ask me to explain the vagaries of the Christian dating scene, have made me particularly aware of just how weird it is. And sometimes it seems strange to me too: waiting for the right guy, or in the words of the Facebook group, "Saving Myself For Wild, Passionate, Awkward Honeymoon Sex" just isn't all it's cracked up to be. That's why I found writing 'Musings on Love' for ReZound, my church's arts event I helped plan, to be such a helpful exercise. My friend Erika and I wrote the Musings to give the event a theological focus, but also found the writing process to be an encouraging reminder of the theological basis for our sacrifices. Speaking of ReZound, you can see some pictures from that love-themed ReZound here (I'm in there somewhere, reading the Goforth's story), and hear one of the songs that was played here ('Peace for Today' should start playing automatically).

It's a bit long, but I thought that in honor of my parent's anniversary I would reproduce the scripture and Musings that were read at ReZound. They are broken up into three parts, which corresponded to the tripartite organization of the event: Creation, Fall, Redemption. For my Christian friends the Musings are meant as encouragement to continue in the sacrificial love we're called to. And to my to my dear non-Christian friends, please consider the following a first stab at explaining what I believe about love and why it has subversive (and at times uncomfortable) results.



Part I: Creation

Genesis 2:18-25

The LORD God said, "It is not good for the man to be alone. I will make a helper suitable for him."
Now the LORD God had formed out of the ground all the beasts of the field and all the birds of the air. He brought them to the man to see what he would name them; and whatever the man called each living creature, that was its name. So the man gave names to all the livestock, the birds of the air and all the beasts of the field.

But for Adam no suitable helper was found. So the LORD God caused the man to fall into a deep sleep; and while he was sleeping, he took one of the man's ribs and closed up the place with flesh he had taken out of the man, and he brought her to the man. Then the LORD God made a woman from the rib. The man said,

"This is now bone of my bones and flesh of my flesh;
she shall be called 'woman,' for she was taken out of man."

For this reason a man will leave his father and mother and be united to his wife, and they will become one flesh.

The man and his wife were both naked, and they felt no shame.

We were made for community. We need others. God made us in his image, male and female, with a potential for intimacy and relationship modeled on the community of his trinity. And it was good. We were able to be honest, naked, in perfect communion with God and each other.

But with this need for community came the potential for loneliness. God recognized this in his creation of Adam—being alone was not good for his human creature. Then came the fall. In the fall all relationships were fundamentally broken. Not only were we alienated from our creator, but we were alienated from our fellow creatures.

And so we are lonely. We crave intimacy; we want someone to truly know us; we want to be as vulnerable as in the Garden and feel full, shining, unconditional love. The fact is, we are not as good alone. Two are better than one, scripture says. A pair gets a better return for a day's work, has someone to help them recover from a fall, someone to keep them warm at night, someone who will help defend against a hostile world. A cord of three strands is not easily broken.



Part II: The Fall

Song of Solomon, 3:1-5

All night long on my bed
I looked for the one my heart loves;
I looked for him but did not find him.

I will get up now and go about the city,
through its streets and squares;
I will search for the one my heart loves.
So I looked for him but did not find him.

The watchmen found me
as they made their rounds in the city.
"Have you seen the one my heart loves?"

Scarcely had I passed them
when I found the one my heart loves.
I held him and would not let him go
till I had brought him to my mother's house,
to the room of the one who conceived me.

Daughters of Jerusalem, I charge you
by the gazelles and by the does of the field:
Do not arouse or awaken love
until it so desires.

The brokenness of human relationships takes many forms. We are selfish in our loving, pursuing our own feelings rather than seeking the other’s best. We make love an idol. Love comes too early or too late. There is enmity between men and women; we envy each other, we fight. Sometimes even our best efforts at reaching out to each other are frustrated. One act of unkindness can lead to broken relationship. One broken relationship can divide a family, a church, or a nation.

God tolerates this brokenness, giving us instructions for dealing with the ugly consequences of our sin, like divorce and adultery. But Christ calls us to a radical new way: “You have heard it was said…but I tell you…” In this unexpected turn of events hateful thoughts and lustful fantasies are on par with murder and adultery! But the most difficult part of the new calling is the complete death to self modeled by Jesus. “Greater love has no man than this, that he lay down his life for his friends.” Our attitude is to be the same as the one "who being very nature God, did not consider equality with God something to be grasped, but made himself nothing, taking the form of a servant." Impossible! Yet God promises his perfect love to sustain us as we struggle to approach relationships with humility and selflessness, ready to sacrifice.



Part III: Redemption

Ephesians 5:25-27
Husbands, love your wives, just as Christ loved the church and gave himself up for her to make her holy, cleansing her by the washing with water through the word, and to present her to himself as a radiant church, without stain or wrinkle or any other blemish, but holy and blameless.

Revelation 21: 1-4
Then I saw a new heaven and a new earth, for the first heaven and the first earth had passed away, and there was no longer any sea. I saw the Holy City, the new Jerusalem, coming down out of heaven from God, prepared as a bride beautifully dressed for her husband. And I heard a loud voice from the throne saying, "Now the dwelling of God is with men, and he will live with them. They will be his people, and God himself will be with them and be their God. He will wipe every tear from their eyes. There will be no more death or mourning or crying or pain, for the old order of things has passed away."

God promises a time when the trials of bad relationships will be washed away and we will stand in perfect relationship to him. This perfect knowing is foreshadowed in the good relationships on earth. Good marriages, families, and friendships offer us a taste of the joy of community in that awaits us in heaven, when the Lamb is united with his bride.

Meanwhile, we can act rightly in relationships, imitating Christ’s perfect agape towards his bride. Like Christ we want to die to self in our service of each other, while we wait patiently for the end of time when all things will be made right. Somehow through this self-death God is making us perfect: the filthy rags which are our acts of righteousness are transformed, clothing the Bride of Christ in clean linen. The time is coming when, with all of heaven and earth, we will say: "Let us rejoice and be glad and give him glory! For the wedding of the Lamb has come, and his bride has made herself ready."

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The illustrations are Marc Chagall's version of the Ruth love story (Naomi and her daughter-in-laws; Ruth and Boaz on the threshing floor; Ruth and Boaz at the end of the story), which I found while looking for ReZound Powerpoint images. I just love how Chagall's depiction of the threshing floor scene communicates the complete awkwardness of that situation. See? Weird and counter-cultural even then! (Although I'm not advocating this!)