Rev’d Mark B. Stirdivant, Good Shepherd Lutheran Church, Yucaipa, California
✝ sdg ✝

What do you think would be the best marriage advice, the words that would do the most good for a couple who is about to get married? What would help them best overcome the pitfalls and barriers to a healthy marriage? What one gem of truth, if they could hold on to it right from the very start, would see them through to a long and blessed life together? Believe me, every time that I meet with an engaged couple to prepare for marriage, I ask myself those very questions. Marriage has always suffered many stresses, and has undergone countless attacks. There is no exception in our day and age. People get lots of attention if they can credibly claim that they have the secret to a divorce-proof relationship.

Divorce is something we have been forced to deal with more and more. Families who never had experienced a hint of this tragedy before can often be sent into a tailspin with one marriage after another suddenly falling like dominoes. Now, instead of saying that 50% or so of marriages end in divorce, experts have been trying to say things like, the average marriage only lasts a certain number of years, and I’ve heard as low a number as seven years. That’s almost like taking divorce as a given; as if marriage eventually dies like anything else that takes its natural life course. Everything that was once so close, so connected, so much in agreement, just drifts apart and nobody can stop it. We’re not in love anymore, or I can’t change your annoying habits, or I don’t like how you handle money, or the kids are all gone and we were just staying together as long as they were living with us. Attitudes like these are far from the life-long exclusive commitment that God had intended for marriage to be from the very beginning.

Yet as important as God’s Word is for marriage, there is even more that He says, something even deeper that He would not want us to neglect. For as the bond of marriage is crucial for the health of our society, that it must at all costs remain defined correctly in our government as a life-long public and legal bond of one man and one woman, so is the Word of our salvation absolutely necessary for our life everlasting. The Book of Hebrews may not have in it the hottest marriage advice that would draw an audience to an afternoon TV talk show, but our Epistle does lay out for us plainly how important it is not to drift away from our Lord’s great commitment to us, His Church.

Instead of exchanging vows back and forth with us, our Savior Jesus Christ came all on His own among us and lived in our own human flesh. He who was already perfect and the Son of the Everlasting Father, was made perfect through suffering in that flesh, since we always need to remember that without flesh it would not have been possible for Him to suffer in our place. He was made like His brothers, appearing as though He were of a lower status than the angels, sharing in the same things we suffered, especially sharing in the curse of our sin even though He had none and taking its heavy burden away from us. Jesus tasted death for everyone, drinking down to the bottom the cup of God’s holy wrath, so that we would be spared from tasting its bitter dregs. You can see how similar to a marriage this faith relationship is with our Lord, yet it is so much greater and farther-reaching. You were joined to Him, not when you decided to commit your life to Him for better or for worse, but rather you became an inheritor with Him when you heard the Word attested to you by those who heard Him directly and wrote it down by the Holy Spirit. The Apostles and Prophets spoke and wrote, but it was all God’s Word. God Himself bore witness to this relationship that He set up with you, not with rings and promises, but with the signs and wonders of Jesus’ miracles, His suffering and death for you on the cross, and the visible Word of Baptism and the Lord’s Supper, distributed as His precious gifts among you here according to His will.

How great a gift this salvation is, and yet we neglect it! You may be quick to give all this wonderful advice to young newlyweds, but you fail from time to time to follow that same advice yourself. The qualities you absolutely despise in other people end up creeping out of your very own life and conduct. You get distracted from prayer, drift away from God’s Word, break off your relationships in a false sense of righteous anger when you get hurt, you redefine what you want to get out of your life as a Christian. Everything that is attacking marriage in our society is also in some way threatening your bond of faith with God your heavenly Father. Even if your marriage isn’t on the rocks or you actually aren’t a detriment to society, there still have been ways in which you rejected God, you ignored His Commandments and despised some part of His calling in life that He gave you.

Because of your sinful nature inside you, you were born into death and held under its power. The devil, who has attacked everyone on earth beginning with the very first married couple, had as his sworn goal your lifelong slavery to his evil devices. I know this all sounds abstract and story-like, like it’s hard to believe—we seem to have bigger problems to worry about. One would even wonder whether we should focus on our nation and the big decisions that we have to make in a few weeks with the election. However, those issues only seem to be greater because their consequences are more immediate. You can feel the effects. But with salvation, on the other hand, it’s all hidden and the eternal life or eternal punishment—that’s all way off in the future to our minds. Dealing with spiritual matters like sin and forgiveness just seems like a waste of time right now. Yet Hebrews jars you with the reality: you thought that neglecting the law brought bad consequences, well, neglecting the Gospel would be disastrous, because then you would be saying no to forgiveness.

Last week you heard that God has sent His mighty angels to guard and keep you, most especially to lead you to believe with all your heart that your name is written in the Lord’s Book of Life in heaven. Jesus came to this earth not to help angels (as great as angels are) but to reach out to you and raise you up above the angels with Him. This in fact could be another clue as to why angels don’t want us to worship them—the truth is, you and I have been exalted in Christ above even the angels! The lesser always praises the greater. The angels may appear greater and be more powerful, but they know that you have been washed with the Blood of Jesus and granted the place of privilege over everything else that the Lord has made, including the mighty angels.

So also this week, as Christ our Lord protects and extols marriage in His teaching, and as He welcomes children into His gracious presence, giving them the hands of His blessing, know that He does all of this to proclaim to you the message of your salvation. Sure, He wants marriages to be strong, our country to be morally grounded, our world to be more peaceful. But more than all of those put together, He wants you to pay close attention to the Gospel Word of forgiveness that you hear. Don’t crowd that Word out with your own ideas, wants and self-centered desires. That’s what leads to hardness of heart. Believe that the welcome that Jesus gave to the little children and infants, is the same open arms of blessing that He extends to you today. He does not want you to drift away. He wants to strengthen His relationship of faith with you because He is forever committed to you.

I know it’s hard to take the Bible’s Word for what it is, and not just because you and I have our sinful natures. It’s difficult to believe because we don’t see good things happening. Hebrews nails it: “At present, we do not yet see everything in subjection to Him.” We don’t see around us the love of our neighbor or the sense of accountability to God that has made our nation great since it began. We get discouraged when we are called upon to bear heavy crosses and burdens with seemingly no end in sight. But soon, we will see everything in subjection to Christ, we will behold all things as they really are. Like the disciples of Jesus who momentarily saw demons fleeing left and right as they were preaching in His name. The end that is sure to come will bring to us a crown of glory and honor that would far outshine the radiance of any bride on her wedding day.

So as you think of the advice that would save and preserve someone’s marriage, apply that advice also to yourself, as it deals with your soul. Pay close attention to the Gospel, His Word that removes your sins and strengthens you in the difficulties of life with His peace. Do not neglect what you have heard, because His vow, His promise to you will never fail. He is not giving you requirements for living up to your end of the deal, but He is handing out to you your very life and forgiveness, your release from everything that oppresses and stresses you. He has made you children of Abraham, sons of those who believe in Jesus and that faith is counted as though you did everything right. And whether He stems the spread of cultural rot in our land, or the bad just keeps getting worse, you still know you have a merciful and faithful high priest in Jesus Christ who has suffered everything for you, and eternal life in His kingdom is yours now, and yours to see very soon.

In the Name of the Father and of the ✝ Son and of the Holy Spirit.

Readings
Gen. 2:18–25 It is not good that man should be alone
Ps. 128 Yes, may you see your children’s children.
Heb. 2:1–18 we must give the more earnest heed to the things we have heard
Mark 10:2–16 what God has joined together, let not man separate.