Proper 22 (October 6, 2024)

Twentieth Sunday After Pentecost

GOSPEL Mark 10:2-16

Mark 10:2–16 NIV84

2 Some Pharisees came and tested him by asking, “Is it lawful for a man to divorce his wife?” 3 “What did Moses command you?” he replied. 4 They said, “Moses permitted a man to write a certificate of divorce and send her away.” 5 “It was because your hearts were hard that Moses wrote you this law,” Jesus replied. 6 “But at the beginning of creation God ‘made them male and female.’ 7 ‘For this reason a man will leave his father and mother and be united to his wife, 8 and the two will become one flesh.’ So they are no longer two, but one. 9 Therefore what God has joined together, let man not separate.” 10 When they were in the house again, the disciples asked Jesus about this. 11 He answered, “Anyone who divorces his wife and marries another woman commits adultery against her. 12 And if she divorces her husband and marries another man, she commits adultery.” 13 People were bringing little children to Jesus to have him touch them, but the disciples rebuked them. 14 When Jesus saw this, he was indignant. He said to them, “Let the little children come to me, and do not hinder them, for the kingdom of God belongs to such as these. 15 I tell you the truth, anyone who will not receive the kingdom of God like a little child will never enter it.” 16 And he took the children in his arms, put his hands on them and blessed them.

The sacred union of husband and wife is an endangered species. In our families it is not enough that there is love. We need to rightly love, to love in a way that leads to blessings for those we claim to love.

Because love can cause harm. Consider the wife whose husband wants little to do with church. She loves him and does not want to upset him. So, when her husband wants her and the children to stay home Sunday morning, she complies without protest. That wife’s love for her husband hurts him, her children, and herself because they are staying away from the medicine God desires to give us to sustain our faith.

This illustrates the need to see and understand Jesus’ love for us. In Jesus we see perfect, self-sacrificial love. Jesus loves us as we are. He also loved us too much to leave us as we are. So, in love he subjected Himself to the Fathers will and gave up his life so that we might be holy and blameless.

His love for us shapes the way we love our spouse, our children, our parents. Today we need to see that followers of Christ know how to love their family.

So today I want to talk with you about love: Love through Giving; Love through Marriage; Love like Christ, because through it all we will understand that Christ is for You!

So, with open ears and open hearts, hear clearly and hold firmly to what God the Holy Spirit teaches us about love.

I. Love Through Giving.

Ephesians 5:21 “Be subject to one another in the fear of Christ.”

The opposite of giving is self-centeredness, which works against any relationship, but especially in the family unit.

Some married couples live as if they are still single.

Allowing a career or special interest to take priority over the relationship.

“Subjection” however, is giving yourself to the other.

“We” becomes more important than “me.”

Sharing ourselves is the most genuine gift we have to offer a relationship.

Subjection of one's own self-interest for the good of the marriage is difficult. It opposes our sinful nature. But what motivates us is in understanding that marriage is God’s idea and will.

II. Love Through Marriage

Marriage as it has been instituted by God

God is the author and designer of marriage (Gen 2:20–24).

Despite what human courts may decide, the Lord God says that marriage:

Is . . . a lifelong union between a man and a woman.

Is not . . . simply the functional arrangement between two persons—who may or may not love each other.

Men and women are office-holders who have no authority to refashion marriage into any other shape or form.

God gives marriage for these reasons (LSB, p 275):

For “the mutual companionship, help, and support” of the husband and wife.

So that husband and wife may “find delight in one another.”

For “the procreation of children.”

Since God is the author and designer of marriage, it cannot be redefined by humans.

Anyone who would attempt to redefine, amend, abbreviate, or adulterate marriage as God has given it fits Isaiah’s description:

Isaiah 29:13 NASB95

13 Then the Lord said, “Because this people draw near with their words And honor Me with their lip service, But they remove their hearts far from Me, And their reverence for Me consists of tradition learned by rote,

To teach otherwise would be to reject “the commandment of God in order to establish [our] tradition!”

Mark 7:9 NASB95

9 He was also saying to them, “You are experts at setting aside the commandment of God in order to keep your tradition.

III. Love Like Christ

Let’s take a look at Christ and his Bride, the Church

We come now more directly to our text, which you may think is chiefly about the topic of marriage.

It’s not; at least not in the way one might initially suppose.

It’s about Christ and his Bride, the Church. And only if one understands that foundation can he rightly understand why the Holy Spirit directs wives and husbands to live toward each other as he does.

Husbands are to love their wives like Christ loves the Church.

This is precisely how today’s text describes it. This is how Christ loved us!

“He handed himself over on her behalf” to suffer her shame, and to save her life.

This he did “in order that”:

He could set her—us—apart as special, and wash her clean (Eph 5:26)!

He could present her—us—to himself a glorious Church. That’s how he sees us (Eph. 5:27)! Picture him standing beside her proudly: “I’m not ashamed to call her mine!” Picture him standing beside her as her advocate.

She—we—would be holy and without spot of sin, blemish of unfaithfulness, or any such thing. That’s how he sees us!

That’s “Love to the loveless shown That they [too] might lovely be” (LSB 430:1)!

Our Beloved’s Great Love for Us Generates and Animates Our Love for Him and for One Another.

So we live in the knowledge that

VI. Christ is for You!

It’s why husbands ought so to love their wives; because it is how you are loved by Christ.

It’s why husbands ought not be harsh with them. Has Christ been harsh with you?

He nourishes you, not belittling you, but building you up.

He cherishes you, caring for you, his own Body.

It’s why husbands ought never embarrass their wives, make a spectacle of their flaws; for Christ gave all of himself to present you to himself as glorious.

It’s why husbands ought to be entirely self-sacrificing, even to the point of death, if love requires it; for Christ was for you.

1 Peter 3:7 NASB95

7 You husbands in the same way, live with your wives in an understanding way, as with someone weaker, since she is a woman; and show her honor as a fellow heir of the grace of life, so that your prayers will not be hindered.

It’s why wives ought to surrender themselves in all things to their husbands; do so out of reverence for Christ, who desires it.

You don’t do it because your husband deserves it, for he deserves it no more than you deserve his entire self-sacrifice.

You do it, as he does, because it’s living out the Gospel and honoring Christ.

Christ is the perfect divine model of love.

He submitted Himself to humiliation for the needs of each of us.

He gave Himself to establish a relationship between us and Himself.

He was motivated by His love for us; there was no personal gain in it for Him.

Christ's work brings forgiveness and freedom from condemnation, releasing us to see beyond our selfish, sinful existence.

Having experienced Christ's love, we are equipped to love as we have been loved-in marriage, in friendship, in family life, etc.

Knowing ourselves to be children of God by grace, we also recognize our spouse as one for whom God has shown all love and one to whom our love should be extended in support, compassion, and forgiveness.

Marriage can be a blessing to the couple and the family and a witness to the glory of our God.

But more than anything this text is all about you. It tells us of our Beloved, Jesus Christ, and how he loved—loves!—us. Therefore, moved by his love and in deepest gratitude to him, we all can honor his institution of marriage, wives and husbands, by living the Gospel toward one another as we ought, and all, married or not, by encouraging husbands and wives to live as our Lord desires, and by honoring marriage in what we say, think, and do.

In the name of the Father and of the Son and of the Holy Spirit. Amen.