why Marriage?

Why not simply live together, and if it doesn’t work out go your separate ways? It’s not so potentially messy that way. Why risk the bother and embarrassment of all these relatives and friends? Buy all these special clothes? Prepare special food? Have people traveling from afar? All this for something that in our society has a 50 percent chance of “making” it.

Many of us come from broken homes. I do. I grew up in the poster family for why two people shouldn’t get married. But even as a child I had a deep yearning for the kind of relationship that only a committed marriage could give. I was able to see through all the insanity around me and believe that this (my family) was a twisted picture. There were pieces of truth smothered by distortions. But the distortions themselves were proof of an original that was not twisted and bent.

And that’s what I wanted—something that went all the way back to the original.

“For this reason” . . . the reason that it was not good for Adam to be alone. “For this reason” . . . the reason that woman was made from the very substance of man himself. “For this reason a man will leave his father and mother and be united to his wife, and they will become one flesh” (Gen. 2:24 niv).

why Marriage?

Because we are made by God with not just the yearning for but the glorious potential to form lasting and binding relationships. These relationships are covenants, and marriage is a noble covenant.

As our culture has not been able to erase marriage then surely the next best thing is to weaken it . . . trivialize it . . . infuse it with avarice. We have prenuptial agreements. What kind of marriage can be built on the assumption of dissolution? We have people getting married jumping out of airplanes or in swimming pools, sideshows with no thought of what the ceremony symbolizes and binds in heaven and on earth.

This is the proper setting: Pastors, parents, brothers, sisters, friends . . . all coming together to witness, to verify, to uphold the couple who, with twinkle in eye and resolve in heart, promise and covenant before God and these witnesses to bind together as if they were one person for the rest of their days on this earth.

why Marriage?

     Because marriage is one of the God-given, God-ordained commitments that calls us to be better than we are, stretching the tent cords of our hearts, forcing us out of “me” mindedness to “we” mindedness.

Why the formality of a wedding ceremony? Because a ceremony signifies importance, setting this day above the days to come. And because we need the distinction of a beginning. Yesterday, I was your friend. Today, I am your wife . . . a change we should not slip into lightly or uncelebrated.

And then, we need the wedding ceremony because it forces us to remember what we might otherwise, at some future fickle moment, try to forget . . . our covenant, our spoken word. And if we forget these words, we surely will have forgotten the one we said them to and those that we said them in front of. We will have lost our way.

why Marriage?

Because it puts us in a position, on a daily basis, to prefer another above ourselves. And that is soothing oil for the soul.

When the proverbial honeymoon is over, we’re looking at the rest of our lives together (every morning, every evening, every weekend). We have before us a special relationship, going beyond the closest friendship, that is bursting with the hourly and daily opportunity to love, to care for someone outside of ourselves, to put someone’s needs in front of our own.

It is in loving my husband that I become a better person. It is in loving my children that I gain spiritual wisdom and insight. The daily working out of these covenants ennoble us. When we trivialize and run from the commitment of marriage, we trivialize and run from the relationship that is most able to “grow” us past ourselves.

why Marriage?

Because marriage has within it the greatest potential to love as Jesus loves us. This is the mystery that Paul talks about where he likens marriage to the relationship between Christ and the Church. No other earthly relationship has this potential. We can have a wonderful relationship with our parents, but it doesn’t mirror that of Christ and the Church. I have valued and dear friendships, but none of them come close to the intimacy and depth of my marriage. They’re not meant to.

Much of the world’s confusion surrounding marriage starts with the confusion about “love.” To society, love is a good feeling. To equate love with feelings is a little like equating school with recess. Now, don’t get me wrong. I want to go down on record as voting in favor of recess and good feelings. I get plenty of good feelings when I am with my husband. But if I wake up one morning not feeling particularly loving or loved, I’ve learned not to wring my hands and say, “It’s all over.” I simply get on with the true definition of love: preferring someone above myself. The “feeling” is sure to pop up again by lunch.

The feeling of love, which is better referred to as infatuation, is a lot like a bird. If we chase after it, it becomes very elusive, always flitting to a bush just out of reach. But if we shrug our shoulders and get on with business, it will come and roost of its own accord.

Love is not a feeling. “Love is patient, love is kind. It does not envy, it does not boast, it is not proud. It is not rude, it is not self-seeking, it is not easily angered, it keeps no record of wrongs” (1 Cor. 13:4-5 niv)—sound like feelings? Love is not something we feel. Love is something we do. And we will never do better.

why Marriage?

Because a cord of three strands is not easily broken. Which brings us to the true face of marriage as God intended it and as you must walk it out in order to truly search its depths. Three strands . . . husband . . . wife . . . and God. Two strands can keep you warm at night. Two strands can be jolly fun for a time, but two strands can be quickly broken. But where there are three strands, and one of them is God Himself, that is a covenant to last a lifetime.

We must weave our marriages very tightly with the presence of God. He is the third strand to bind and protect us. What does it mean to have God as the third strand? Well, for one, the husband will be the priest of the home, but he will not be the boss. God’s the boss. As a wife, the woman will love and place her husband before all other men on earth, but she must not place him before God.

And, now, my favorite: Why a marriage ceremony? Because we get to celebrate together. What better place to celebrate an earthly union of heavenly dimensions than in the house of God with friends and family. God loves celebration. The longer I walk with God, the more I know this to be true, because the serious business of heaven is joy. And the earnest, prayerful union of two people is a joy for all of us to behold and wonder.

First published in Cornerstone (ISSN 0275-2743), Vol. 29, Issue 119 (2000), p. 40
© 2000 Cornerstone Communications, Inc.
Electronic version may contain minor changes and corrections from printed version.