God's Plan for Marriage in the Redemption in Christ

Sin and Redemption:In chapter 3 of Genesis, sin enters the picture and seriously affects the relationships between man and woman (3:16), between them and nature (3:17-19), and between them and God (3:23). All the evil things that are present in the male-female relationship are presented as the result of sin: polygamy, use of the other as an object rather than as a person, lust without love, violence and sadism, domination and subservience. “Then the eyes of both of them were opened and they realized that they were naked”(3:7). They saw now sin and in another sense they lost sight of the divine in each other! It was now fallen man and fallen woman..Though Christ has now redeemed the world, we must share in this redemption (Col 1:24). We are now struggling to regain the creation. In relation to marriage, this struggle to regain the original plan of creation was the radical call that Christ made: ”Have you not read that the creator from the beginning made them male and female..”(Matthew 19:4). The idea of redemption is prepared for in the Old Testament by God’s love for the people of the covenant. To express that love, the prophets turned frequently to the image of marriage (Cf. Hosea, Jeremiah 2:1-4:4, Ezekiel 16 and 23, Isaiah 54:1-10, Song of Songs, Tobit..). Hosea waits patiently for his unfaithful wife Gomer to return symbolically manifesting God's patience for his people to return to Him from their unfaithfulness in their following the pagan gods. In this process, marriage was in its turn illuminated by the covenant. The Song of Songs is full of poetic expressions of the lover towards the beloved, again a symbol for God's love and commitment to His people. Marriage became a mirror in which something of God’s love was seen as reflected. If husband and wife loved each other as God loved, then they would indeed be returning to the creation. In John 13:34 Jesus says “I give you a new commandment: love one another...”. At first sight there is nothing new (see Deuteronomy 6:4-5 and Leviticus 19:18). The newness of the commandment is in the words immediately following “just as I have loved you, you also must love one another.” No one ever loved as Jesus loved, for he still loved his disciples and enemies when rejected and abandoned on the cross. Thus it is an enormous thing when husbands are told to love their wives “as Christ loved the Church and sacrificed himself for her that he might sanctify her, having cleansed her” (Eph 5:25). To reflect on the profound love of God, let us "go in the deep." We may speak symbolically of God as a family. The essence of the Trinity is that the Persons are united in love yet distinct: three in one. Husband and wife are also united yet distinct..Like God they too give life (co-creators). With their child, the fruit of their love, they become three in one. To the creation idea of finding God in the other, Christian revelation adds the idea of finding the creative innermost life of God in their family. A family is a fuller image of God than an individual. A Sacrament of Church: The Christian marriage is a sacrament, both a covenant between the couple, and a covenant between them and God. In it, God offers the promise of divine grace to sustain their union and renew the creation. In the sacrament of marriage, Jesus blesses, and is a witness of, the marriage covenant that creates the family. The New Testament begins with the birth of Jesus in a human family. After spending most of his life with that family, Jesus began his public ministry at the invitation of his mother with a miracle at Cana in which he abundantly blessed the ordinary joys of a wedding by turning water into wine (John 2). Not only did he start his public ministry by blessing the wedding, He also ended his public ministry by returning to his concern for family “Woman this is your son..”(John 19:26) After this he knew everything was completed (John 19:28). Jesus came on earth to change human society in all places and times. To accomplish this, he knew the place to start and end was the family. Marriage is the only sacrament in which the persons involved are themselves the “matter” of the sacrament. The matter of sacrament is the material substance used in celebrating the sacrament - it always points to the spiritual reality present and is said to be a visible sign of invisible grace (e.g. water in baptism physically cleans and purifies just as baptism does it spiritually. In the same way, oil physically strengthens and heals just as chrismation/confirmation does this spiritually.) While the sacrament is received at one moment at the wedding, the grace of the sacrament continues to be administered and received throughout the couple’s lives. Grace is God at work within us. In marriage the couple are meant to mediate this grace to each other. Because the couple are still fallen humanity, this mediation of grace is essential. Their marriage is filled with the difficulties of ordinary humanity struggling to regain the creation. There is thus a constant need to experience conversion of heart. Because of their limitations and sinfulness, their married love involves that death to self that makes it truly Christian. The forgiveness received from the other is an experience of Christ’s forgiveness and grace mediated through the other. Since the "one flesh" union of man and wife foreshadowed Christ and the Church right from "the beginning," Pope John Paul II speaks of marriage as the primordial sacrament: "All the sacraments of the new covenant find in a certain sense their prototype in marriage.” This is why Baptism is a "nuptial bath" and why the Eucharist is "the Sacrament of the Bridegroom and of the Bride." When we receive the body of Christ into our own, in a mysterious way, like a bride, we conceive new life in us — life in the Holy Spirit. It is this same Holy Spirit that forms the bond that unites spouses in the sacrament of marriage. Three Qualities of marriage:a) One man and one woman (monogamous): Love and commitment cannot be divided between several spouses. Once you are in true love, it is a total and unique giving of oneself. b) For their entire lives: love and commitment (indissoluble); A couple who live together without marriage may feel fully committed to each other. They may be convinced that their union is more authentic precisely because there are no legal and social bonds constraining them. However, without marriage they are falling short of total commitment, and they are lacking that confidence and courage to be committed for life. To love another totally, but only for a time, is a contradiction in terms. At the wedding, each of the partners consents fully to take the other as his own. And that is the beginning of the life-long covenant of marriage. c) To beget new life (procreative): Just as God’s love was fruitful in the creation of humankind, so this deepest human union of man and woman is meant to be fruitful. With God, they co-create another image of God with the same presence of the infinite. It is at the moment of the birth of their first child that a couple are usually most aware of the presence of the infinite. There is a sense of wonder as they hold their first baby in their arms. It is a permanent reality of their marriage and can give them a sense of reverence for each other and for their children. * The above text contains excerpts from "Marriage, Divorce & Nullity" by Bishop Geoffrey Robinson, published by Dave Communications, copyright (c) 1984 and "A Basic Theology of Marriage.", (c) 1984 by Christopher West - see his website: http://www.christopherwest.com