Debbie and I celebrated 38 years of marriage this week. My views on marriage have grown and changed a lot since we first married. Through our marriage, I am learning to embrace it when God ambushes my selfishness and reveals my brokenness. I am learning to clamor for the way of humility rather than assert my rights, defend my position, or justify myself. I have come to see marriage differently. The change has been subtle, gradual, and imperceptible.
I did not realize it until a few weeks ago when I was asked to review notes for a global training program within our denomination addressing marriage and family. As I read the material, I had a sudden flash of memories. It was like microfilm from the archives department playing through my mind about all the things I have read over the years about marriage—all from within my Protestant background. I began to realize that because traditional Protestant theology does not include marriage as a sacrament, we run the risk of reducing marriage to a transactional agreement between two parties. No mystery to it. No “otherness” about it. Just two people making a mutually beneficial agreement.
Marriage is more than a transactional agreement. It is a divine mystery, a living icon of Christ and his church. The love, passion, and longing I have for union with my wife—union of spirit, soul, and body—is an echo of my soul’s longing for union with Christ. When my soul’s longing is fulfilled at the resurrection of the dead, marriage as an icon will cease to exist, not because it will be outdated but because it will be fulfilled. Creation will be fully healed and restored to its God; the two joined together in the song of the redeemed. The icon fades into what was signified. Longing gives way to fulfillment. Promise and hope burst forth in all things becoming new. The shadow of marriage becomes the substance of what was longed for.
Marriage is about more than two people being joined together; it is about the human community becoming whole and holy unto the Lord. It is about healing the wound of death and destruction we inherited from our first parents. It is about love reaching into the deepest, darkest, and most fiercely protected citadels of the human heart and healing it with love, grace, and a persistent presence. It is here, in this house of ambush, that we see the healing and restorative power of grace incarnate in human flesh for the life of the world.
Perhaps my Protestant mind cannot utter the words, “Marriage is a sacrament,” but my transformed heart, healed and being healed by the grace-infused love of that woman—the one who captured my imagination more than thirty-five years ago—gladly confesses that marriage is sacramental. And like all means of grace, it is for the healing of the nations.
Adapted from my new book, Following Wisdom, Leading Wisely: Proverbs as Ancient Wisdom for Today’s Leader. Pick your copy today. Available on Amazon or wherever you get your books.
Debbie and I serve as the FMI Global Associate Director for MENACA and Europe. We focus on cultivating disciples, leaders, and church planting movements.
