Wisdom 41 It Takes a Cross to Make a Marriage

[HKHaugan]

Wisdom 41 It Takes a Cross to Make a Marriage

 The shift from religion to relationship becomes a reality when Jesus transforms a wedding ceremony into a miracle ceremony at a wedding in Cana of Galilee (Mt.2:1-11). It makes very clear that God is personally involved in the lives of those He created to be images of Him. It’s His first miracle and therefore His foundational plan to redefine, reorder and restore the world and its people. Jesus comes as the complete picture, the exact image, the full presence of God to let fallen humanity and its broken world see what a perfect human mind, heart and spirit look and act like. So, what He does at the wedding sets the tone for His entire life on earth because it reflects God as spiritual, personal and relational.

 There are so many implications of spiritual transformation in this event. Look at the context. The first thing we see is that Jesus has chosen two of John’s disciples to follow Him. The next day He chooses two more. They and the disciples yet to follow Him, learn what it means to be human from the perfect human, Jesus. Then He takes them to the way humanity is spiritually formed and developed, marriage. It’s on the third day that He and His new disciples go to the wedding. There He fulfills three things: His being the promised Messiah, His work as Redeemer of mankind and His spiritual power as Lord of Creation. The fact that He arrives on the third day is significant because it foreshadows His Resurrection which seals faith as the means to eternal life. That, He accomplished by defeating death on the Cross. This in turn means when we take up our cross, faith, we defeat the relational dynamics that bring relational death and replace them with the Spirit of love, honesty and openness in Christ. More on that coming.

 There at the wedding, Jesus’ presence declares relationship as the most important aspect of humanity. God is relational, Father, Son and Holy Spirit, and He is restoring man and woman, His created images, and elevating them to the relational position He intended in Creation. Something definitively new was happening there. Something spiritual.

First, the redemption of the basic human relationship between man and woman.

Second, establishing family as the primary social organism that makes the family the stabilizing unit for society.

Third, marriage and family restored in Christ means society can be recovered through them.

They are the focal point for human restoration and reconciliation of the world to God.

 “Therefore, if anyone is in Christ, the new creation has come: The old has gone, the new is here! All this is from God, who reconciled us to himself through Christ and gave us the ministry of reconciliation: that God was reconciling the world to himself in Christ, not counting people’s sins against them. And He has committed to us the message of reconciliation (2Cor.5:17-19).”

 Here follows another implication of Jesus’ presence at the marriage ceremony. It shows that the two most important roles a man and woman can undertake in the world are husband and wife. These enable the second most important roles, father and mother, the heart of family, the building block of society. From these roles come the raising and training of children to take on the same roles. Jesus is the balance of both and the redeemer of the third through them. It follows that our professional and social positions are designed to support the relational experience we have been given both in the home and in the world. This in no way undercuts the importance of what we do for a living or where we stand in society’s structures. Our inborn abilities to live and work are best developed when marriage and family are spiritually grounded through faith in Jesus led by the Holy Spirit.

 When Jesus is in the heart of the husband and wife, His love is the force providing openness and honesty that gives them the spiritual base to raise children in the same atmosphere. It is the spiritual atmosphere of grace (His presence), love (His action) and truth (His mind) that builds stability and confidence in children. When they are trained with Jesus in mind and heart, their lives become faith oriented and productive. It is the presence of Jesus in the heart that enables a person to develop like Him.

 Next, the ‘new’ is not just the coming of an expected Messiah but what that means and does for people everywhere. Jesus opens the door to expecting the unexpected; new feelings, new events, new ideas, new ways to express the heart and mind, new ways to help one another, meeting needs, fulfilling desires spiritually and defining ministry and mission. As the Lord has spoken, “Behold, I am making all things new (Is.43:15, Rev.21:5).”

 Part of that newness is the recognition that everyone is unique. Society without God is no longer the measure of what it means to be an individual with its fear driven conformity standards. In Christ a person develops what no other influence can, personal and individual spiritual maturity. The natural abilities and skills spiritually and relationally applied produce new things. The value of uniqueness is the focus. Jesus is the perfect example of spiritually matured uniqueness developed and applied.

 Jesus’ very presence takes a religious ceremony and makes it a spiritually miraculous event. Consider that Adam and Eve, the first man and woman, the first husband and wife, were separated by sin, each enveloped in personal aloneness, fear, the man centered in his ego, the woman in her needs and both feeling their nakedness to the point of guilt. Guilty, alone, spiritually naked and afraid, blaming one another, separated from God and devoid of the Spirit, they set the future of men and women in unfulfilled needs and unjustifiable pride apart from God.

 When Jesus came to the ceremony He brought hope for true relational reconciliation and growth through the Holy Spirit. What was alienated from God by the devil and sin in Adam and Eve was restored by the blood of Jesus, the wine in the ceremony. It is the Spirit who enables true communication, looking forward to being at one with God and each other, being witnesses to an unreconciled world. This is what God can do when we allow Him to redeem marriage. What we see in the wine is the foretaste of the shed blood of Jesus on the Cross. It is this sacrifice that enables the man and the woman to take up their cross of faith that opens honest relational communication and overcomes the sinful condition that separates men and women.   No one enters a marriage with perfect emotion, perfect intention and perfect relational understanding. Only the Spirit can enable that kind of experience. Jesus’ presence at the Cana wedding opened that door for all people.   It takes a cross to make a marriage.