Love and marriage – Tawa Baptist

Scripture: Ephesians 5:21-33

Sructure:

Introduction
Wives and husbands
Christ and the church
Conclusion

Introduction:

Today we continue our series in Ephesians. From Chapter 5, verse 21 (in the NIV) we read…

²¹Submit to one another out of reverence for Christ. ²²Wives, submit yourselves to your husbands as to the Lord. ²³For the husband is the head of the wife as Christ is the head of the church, his body, of which he is the Saviour. ²⁴Now as the church submits to Christ, so also wives should submit to their husbands in everything. ²⁵Husbands, love your wives, just as Christ loved the church and gave himself up for her ²⁶to make her holy, cleansing her by the washing with water through the word, ²⁷and to present her to himself as a radiant church, without stain or wrinkle or any other blemish, but holy and blameless. ²⁸In this same way, husbands ought to love their wives as their own bodies. He who loves his wife loves himself. ²⁹After all, no one ever hated their own body, but they feed and care for their body, just as Christ does the church— ³⁰for we are members of his body. ³¹“For this reason a man will leave his father and mother and be united to his wife, and the two will become one flesh.” ³²This is a profound mystery—but I am talking about Christ and the church. ³³However, each one of you also must love his wife as he loves himself, and the wife must respect her husband.

May the Spirit of Jesus illuminate God’s word for us

On the wall here is a picture of a ‘four strand square sinnet’ – a type of braided rope. Many years ago (before wireless technology) they used to braid telephone cords in this way.

Today’s reading is like a cord of four strands. Paul weaves together the relationship of wives and husbands with that of Christ and church.
First let us consider what Paul has to say to wives and husbands.

Wives & husbands:

Last week I was reading a collection of short stories by James Runcie and I came across a word I had never seen before: Uxorious.

I asked Robyn to look up the meaning for me on her phone and she very kindly submitted to my request.

Uxorious means to have or show a great or excessive fondness for one’s wife.

I thought to myself, that describes me, but I didn’t say anything to Robyn at the time. She’s intelligent enough to figure it out for herself.

Uxorious can be taken positively or negatively, depending on the context in which it is used, but I’m using it today in the positive sense.

Our reading starts with the verse, submit to one another out of reverence for Christ. You may remember from three weeks ago that mutual submission is one of the behaviours of those who are filled with the Holy Spirit.

Verse 22 goes on to say: Wives, submit to your husbands as to the Lord.

Now some people hear that and it gets their heckles up – it’s not popular these days to talk about women submitting to men.
Submission has almost become a swear word and we can understand why. This verse has sometimes been misunderstood and misused to control or even oppress women – so an explanation is needed.

Firstly, the context is one of mutual submission (it goes both ways)

Paul gives three examples of mutual submission within Christian households in Ephesians: that is, between wives & husbands, between children & parents and between servants & masters.
So women are not being singled out here; mutual submission is an equal opportunity thing – all Spirit filled Christians are supposed to do it.

If anything, there seems to be a greater emphasis in this text on the husband’s responsibilities. For example…

Verse 25: Husband’s love your wives just as Christ loved the church…
Verse 28: Husbands ought to love their wives as their own bodies. And,
Verse 33: Each of you [husbands] must love his wife as he loves himself.
Love involves the submission of oneself for another.

With this in view Paul is describing the ideal in Christian marriage.

Wives submit to your husbands assumes a marriage in which husbands are uxorious (in the best possible sense) – they love their wives.
So wives are essentially being invited to submit to their husband’s love.
This is not like Shakespeare’s play The Taming of the Shrew, where Petruchio treats his wife (Kate) badly in order to make her obey him.
Wives are not expected to submit to a husband’s violence or meanness.
Nor are they expected to submit to a husband when he is asking them to do something ungodly. We are to submit to one another as to the Lord.
If the Lord Jesus wouldn’t ask you to do it then you don’t need to submit.

Another thing to keep in mind here is what Paul does not say

For example, Paul does not say wives must obey their husbands.
For years the traditional marriage vows included a line about wives promising to obey their husbands. I’m not sure where that came from?
Nowhere in the Bible does it say that wives are to obey their husbands.
It does say that children should obey their parents and servants should obey their masters, but wives are to submit to their husband’s love.

Furthermore, this passage does not say that all women everywhere must submit to any man they come across. Women and men have equal value in God’s sight.

Nor does it say anything about women in leadership.
This passage is talking about husbands & wives and Christ & the church.

What about that line, in verse 23, about the husband being the head of the wife?

To a 21^st Century mind that sounds just as offensive as submitting.
Well, before we take offense, we need to understand what is meant by ‘headship’.

In the English language being the ‘head’ of something is associated with authority or being the leader, the one in charge, the one responsible.

We talk about the heads of government, for example, or the head of a corporation.
Verse 23 says: For the husband is the head of the wife as Christ is the head of the church, his body, of which he is the Saviour.
Now husbands are not the Saviour of their wives. Christ is our Saviour.
But husbands do have a leadership responsibility in the family.
However, that leadership, that headship is not defined by the standards of the world – it is defined by Christ.
As we know from the gospel, Jesus’ leadership was a servant leadership (it was not a dictatorship) – Jesus led in a way that served the interests of the people, he submitted his life to save us.
So that’s the kind of headship that husbands are supposed to demonstrate, sacrificial, self-giving leadership.

The Bible’s idea of headship does not mean that wives just need to suck it up and accept whatever the husband says. Paul is saying husbands are the ‘head’.

So a good question to ask is: What does a head do?
I head looks, listens and thinks, then makes a decision which is in the interests of the body. The head is there to look after the body.
So guys, we have a responsibility to listen to our wives – listening is the first duty of love
And when I say ‘listen’, I don’t just mean listen to your wife’s words, I mean listen to her heart, get close to her, try to understand what she is feeling.
Being the head means thinking about your wife’s wellbeing; and listening gives you a few clues as to what her well-being might look like.

A husband’s headship then is to be modelled off Christ who doesn’t boss people around but rather woos and wins people over with his love.

Just as Jesus lovingly thinks about our wellbeing, so too husbands are to lovingly think about how best to care for their wives.

Let me give you an example of what headship and submitting to a husband’s love might look like…

Ladies, imagine you are married with young children and you’ve had a really hard day – maybe the kids were grizzly or sick or maybe you had some difficult things to deal with at work.
Whatever it was, you are exhausted and at the end of your rope.
Your husband comes home and asks you how your day was.
‘Hard’, you reply. You want to say more but it’s not the right time – your head is pounding, the kids are screaming and you need to think about what to cook for dinner.
Your husband is still for a moment, which tells you he’s thinking. He always looks a bit blank when he’s putting things together in his head.
Then he comes over to you, puts his arms around you and gently kisses you on the forehead. You hold each other for a moment, then he says…
‘Why don’t you go and have a bath. I’ll sort the kids and the dinner.’
You are about to protest, to play the role of the martyr, and then you remember what the pastor said in his sermon last Sunday, ‘Wives, submit to your husbands’.
‘Ok’, you say meekly and take yourself off for a soak in the tub.

As you are lying there in the bath you remember the way you and your husband have always been there for each other.

You care for one another in a hundred small ways but also in bigger more significant ways.
Like the time he agreed to shift cities for your job
And the time you supported him when he wanted to go back to university to finish his masters.
As you think about these things a profound sense of thankfulness fills you – you are thankful for your husband yes, but also thankful for Jesus, who has had such a good influence on your husband.

You emerge from the bathroom 40 minutes later, having washed the worries of the day off, feeling more relaxed.

The kids are doing their homework or colouring in and dinner is nearly ready – chicken parmigiana for you and him, chicken nuggets for the kids
You smile to yourself because that’s what he used to cook for you before you were married – it’s his specialty, his ‘I love you’ meal.
He hands you a glass of Sav (so thoughtful, he knows you well). You take a sip and feel it go down.

After dinner you both put the kids to bed, then you settle down together in the lounge and share the contents of your day.

After listening to your heart your husband goes still and quiet again – you know that look, he’s thinking.
‘Why don’t we have a weekend away? Just the two of us. We can leave the kids with your parents’, he says.
And you reply, ‘I would like that. Let me organise it.’

We are talking about mutual submission and headship – not living solely for ourselves but thinking about each other.

You know, if you are married and a Christian, then the primary context for discipleship (the most important place for learning to be like Jesus) is your marriage.

It is as a husband and wife submit to and love one another that they learn the way of Christ.

Christ and the church:

Woven through his instruction on how wives and husbands are to relate to each other, Paul also talks about Christ’s relationship to the church, which is a bit like a loving marriage.

Two things in particular we note about Christ and the church:
Christ is one with the church,
And Christ loves the church, like an uxorious husband.

In verse 23 Paul says that Christ is the head of the church, his body and in verse 30 he says, we are members of Christ’s body.

The head and the body are not separate – they are one, a unity.
There is a mutuality between the head and the body.
In the same way there is a oneness between Christ and the church.

Paul alludes to this oneness again in verses 31 & 32 where he talks about the profound mystery of a husband and wife becoming one flesh.

The image here is of intimacy between Christ and the church, not sexual intimacy as such but an intimacy of spirit.

I like what Eugene Peterson writes in his commentary on Ephesians…

Mystery is beyond our control. Paul named the relation between husband and wife [and between Christ and the church] a mystery. In order to enter a mystery we have to submit, to be humble before what is other and more than us. The precondition for apprehending mystery is letting go…
Spirit is the unseen ‘between’ where relationship is born and matures. [1]

Christ and his church are one – we are one with Christ like a head and a body are one, or like a husband & wife are one.

That sort of intimacy requires letting go.
Letting go is an act of trust – it takes courage and vulnerability.
We call that mysterious closeness (that unseen between) ‘spirit’
Spirit is like a wireless connection between people and between Christ and his church. Spirit is where relationship is born and grows.

Alongside this reality of Christ’s oneness with the church (and inseparable from it) is Christ’s love for the church.

Christ’s love for the church is greater than even the most uxorious husband’s love for his wife. Christ’s love has the power to transform.

Aretha Franklin, the queen of soul, sang a song called Natural Woman.

It was written by Carole King & Gerry Goffin, one night after they had put the kids to bed.
On the face of it Natural Woman is a song about a woman who feels valued and appreciated by her husband for who she is. Her husband makes her feel like she can be herself (a natural woman).
It’s got some great lyrics. We’d like to play it for you now…

Looking out on the morning rain I used to feel so uninspired
And when I knew I had to face another day Lord, it made me feel so tired
Before the day I met you, life was so unkind. But you’re the key to my peace of mind.

‘Cause you make me feel, you make me feel, you make me feel like a natural woman (woman)

When my soul was in the lost and found you came along to claim it.
I didn’t know just what was wrong with me ‘til your kiss helped me name it.
Now I’m no longer doubtful, of what I’m living for. And if I make you happy I don’t need to do more.

‘Cause you make me feel, you make me feel, you make me feel like a natural woman (woman)

Oh, baby, what you’ve done to me (what you’ve done to me). You make me feel so good inside (good inside). And I just want to be, close to you (want to be)
You make me feel so alive.

You make me feel, you make me feel, you make me feel like a natural woman (woman)…

Aretha seems to be singing about the ideal husband, the perfect man.

…you’re the key to my peace of mind.
When my soul was in the lost and found you came along to claim it.
You make me feel so good inside
I’m pretty sure there’s only one man who could live up to this ideal.
(So ladies, you probably can’t expect this of your husbands all the time)
In Ephesians 5 Paul describes Christ as the perfect husband of the church.

From verse 25 we read…

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.

The image here is of Christ claiming the church’s soul from the lost and found

Restoring the church, making her beautiful again, but not beautiful in a superficial or artificial sense – beautiful in a natural sense – holy.
To be holy is to be set apart, to be special.
Holiness is also about wholeness and integrity.
Holiness does not require us to be something we are not.
Holiness sets us free to be who we truly are – to live in our soul and be our natural authentic self. Holiness is naturally beautiful, without trying.

Jesus takes away our sin, our shame and our guilt so we can be who God created us to be.

cleansing by the washing with water through the word could be a reference to the work of the Holy Spirit in our lives.
Water is often associated with the Holy Spirit and the word of God can only be understood and applied with the help of the Holy Spirit.

When we look at ourselves and at the wider church in the world today we don’t always see the beauty of holiness – the church is less than perfect at times.

But Paul’s focus here isn’t so much on the earthly church as it is on the church in the heavenly realms.
We can’t see it yet but Jesus (by His Word & Spirit) is making us holy, naturally beautiful, as we submit to his love.

Conclusion:

This morning we’ve heard how husbands and wives are to relate with each other and, by analogy, how Christ relates to the church

Jesus is both the head of the church, which is his body
And he is the groom of the church, which is his bride.
Unlike any ordinary groom though, Jesus’ love has the power to transform his bride and bring out her natural God given beauty.

Questions for discussion or reflection:

What stands out for you in reading this Scripture and/or in listening to the sermon?Why do you think this stood out to you?
How are we to understand Paul’s instruction for wives to submit to their husbands? What might mutual submission (in marriage) look like? Do you have a story of mutual submission you could share?
What does Paul mean when he says that the husband is the head of the wife? What does a head do?
If you are married, when was the last time you really listened to your spouse?
Discuss / reflect on the mystery of the oneness of Christ and the church. What images does Paul use for portraying Christ’s oneness with the church? What are the implications for us?
How is Christ’s love for the church different from a husband’s love for his wife?
What does it mean that Jesus makes the church holy?
How might we submit to Jesus’ love?

[1] Eugene Peterson, ‘Practise Resurrection’, pages 248 & 249.

Tag: Love and marriage

Love & Marriage